
I 



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PATRIOTIC DRAMA 
IN YOUR TOWN 



COMSTAN 



BY 







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Class '' V " 

Book_id 

OopigM 



COFffilGHT DEPOSfH 



BY ' 

CONSTANCE D'ARCY MACKAY 

THE LITTLE THEATRE IN THE 
UNITED STATES 
Illustrated. With index. Large 12mo. $2.00 
net. 

COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR 

AMATEURS 
With numerous illustrations and index. 
Large 12mo. $1.75 net. 

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN'S 

PLAYS 
12mo. $1.30 net. 
PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 
12mo. $1.35 net. 



PLAYS 

THE BEAU OF BATH and Five Other 
One-Act Plays 

For amateurs and for Little Theatres. With 
illustrations after Reynolds, Humphrey and 
Romney. 12mo. $1.30 net. 

THE FOREST PRINCESS and Five Other 
Masques 
Supplemented by papers on Costumes for 
Masques and Music for Masques, etc. 12mo. 
$1.35 net. 

PATRIOTIC PLAYS AND PAGEANTS 
The Pageant of Patriotism and The Haw- 
thorne Pageant. Arranged both for outdoor 
and for indoor performance, and so that they 
can be split up into short plays. 12mo. $1.35 
net. 

THE HOUSE OF THE HEART 
Ten short plays in verse for children of 
fourteen or younger. 16mo. $1.20 net. 

THE SILVER THREAD and Seven Other 
Folk Plays 
Short plays of various nations for young 
folk. 16mo. $1.20 net. 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
Publishers Niw Yob* 



PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN 
YOUR TOWN 

A Manual of Suggestions 



BY 

CONSTANCE D'ARCY MACKAY 

Author of " The Little Theatre in the United States," 
"Patriotic Plays and Pageants," etc., etc. 




NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1918 



^5**3 



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Copyright, 1918, 

BY 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



NOV -6 1918 ' 
©a. A 5 08 055 



Remember . . . that behind officers and govern- 
ment and people even, there is the country herself, 
your country; and that you belong to her. 

Edward Everett Hale, 
in The Man Without a Country. 

We must have but one flag. We must also have 
but one language. This must be the language of 
the Declaration of Independence. . . . We cannot 
tolerate any attempt to oppose or supplant the lan- 
guage and culture that has come down to us from 
the builders of this Republic with the language and 
culture of any European country. 

The greatness of this nation depends on the swift 
assimilation of the aliens she welcomes to her shores. 

President Wilson. 

The crucible must melt all who are cast in it; it 
must turn them out in one American mold; and this 
must be the mold shaped one hundred and forty 
years ago by the men who under Washington 
founded this a free nation separate from all other 
nations. 

From Children of the Crucible, by 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
September, 1917. 



PREFACE 

This little book contains patriotic dramatic 
material for use in American communities, 
as well as a plea for Americanization through 
drama: it strives to suggest, not to dogma- 
tize; to point the way rather than to declare 
it. Practicality is its chief aim. It endeavors 
to set before its readers a brief outline of 
what could be accomplished along the lines 
of drama in all our cities where dramatic 
work is stirring but unfocused. 

The World War has shown us that drama 
is a necessity in the lives of our people. 
Army and Navy, Church and State, Hos- 
pital and Recreative Council, Y.M.C.A. and 
Y.W.C.A. are turning to it as to an ally. 
Every Military and Red Cross parade has af- 
firmed its power, " the thing made manifest 
before the eyes of the people." 



vi PREFACE 

And as Americanization is to be our watch- 
word now and in the days that are coming, 
what can make for solidarity more swiftly 
and effectively than the art of drama? What 
can more quickly and vividly make our his- 
tory real to the foreign-born within our 
midst? How shall they learn patriotism save 
through participation? How shall they as- 
similate our language save through the 
spoken word? 

National and Patriotic Leagues, schools, 
settlements, civic and social centers have come 
to feel that this is true. 

The World War has kindled a greater love 
for drama than we have ever had before: it 
has revealed its power for service as well as 
for recreation. We cannot let this power 
die. After the war it must go on. It must 
continue to be a force for patriotism and 
solidarity. But it needs direction. 

Therefore this little book has striven to 
make a few suggestions on the subject of 
Americanization through Drama; A City's 
Unification through Drama; to give a brief 



PREFACE vii 

survey of some of the work toward this end 
done through pageantry, and by indoor and 
outdoor community theatres; it also contains 
a chart or dramatic program of progress for 
cities wishing to make their plans ahead. 
And lastly it contains dramatic material and 
suggestions for Patriotic Celebrations for 
National Holidays, such as Fourth of July, 
etc., and for Community Celebrations for 
Christmas. 

The bibliography has been founded on 
drama lists prepared by the author for the 
Junior Red Cross and for Patriotic Play 
Week for rural communities as organized 
by the War Camp Community Service. 

Very valuable and helpful lists of plays are 
prepared by the Drama League of America, 
Riggs Building, Washington, D. C. The 
Drama League is working to make appre- 
ciative audiences, and reaching every part 
of the country. Anyone can join by send- 
ing one dollar, and it is to be hoped that 
every reader of this book has joined, or 
will. 



viii PREFACE 

Thanks are due to The American City, 
The Woman's Magazine, The Churchman, 
and The Popular Educator for their kind 
permission to reprint the material in this 
book. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAOE 

I Americanization Through Drama . 3 

II The Unification of Your Town 

Through Drama . . . . 15 

III Drama Chart or Program of Prog- 

ress 33 

IV The Little Independent Theatre 

and Your Town .... 46 

V The Historical Pageant ... 62 

VI How to Organize an Historical 

Pageant 75 

VII The Outdoor Theatre and Your 

Town 91 

VIII Suggestions for Patriotic Celebra- 
tions of Fourth of July and 
Other National Holidays . . 98 

IX Suggestions for Christmas Commu- 
nity Celebrations Around the 
Tree of Light ..... 123 



PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR 
TOWN 



I 

AMERICANIZATION THROUGH DRAMA 

PERHAPS because the very essence of 
drama is struggle it has taken the 
World War, the greatest struggle of 
all history, to reveal the place in our national 
life which drama has suddenly come to oc- 
cupy. The art which Puritanism crushed and 
denied has now become one of the mightiest 
forces making for democracy, a force that 
has entered so deeply into the heart of Amer- 
ica that never again can it be relegated to the 
place it once held. Its power will keep on 
growing long after the war is over. What 
it has done in war time is vastly significant: 
what it can do when the war is over is even 
more significant. If in war time the drama 
has revealed itself as possessing two great 
powers, the power of service and the power 
of re-creation (which is what the word 
recreation really means), what may it not 

3 



4 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

reveal in the days that are coming — in the 
days after the war? 

Never before has the need of imaginative 
recreation been so universally recognized. 
And the present holds the promise of the 
future. One has only to see what has been 
done to realize what may be done, since the 
drama is an art that is forever young, that has 
within itself the magic of infinite renewal. 

Therefore, before looking futureward it 
may be well to glance at a brief summary 
of what has already been accomplished. And 
first of all it must be admitted that in the 
achievement of making the abstract become 
the concrete the drama leads all other arts. 
It can swiftly and poignantly drive home a 
truth. It can liberate the imagination and 
make people see. 

A greensward on which Jeanne D'Arc is 
kneeling, her face uplift, exalted, the sword 
of France in her hand. What is this but 
patriotism made manifest to the multitude 
through drama? 

The tramp of marching feet: long lines of 



AMERICANIZATION THROUGH DRAMA 5 

men in khaki: the heart-lifting strains of a 
military march: a starry banner, blowing in 
the wind. What is this but the spirit of 
America made manifest to the multitude 
through pageantry, one of the most ancient 
forms of drama? 

General Pershing has declared that imagi- 
native recreation is necessary for the morale 
of the American troops abroad, and the 
" Over There Theatre " is promptly organ- 
ized. For the first time in history army and 
navy and church and hospital are looking to 
this power as an ally, are one in declaring 
that drama is what the soldier and sailor off 
duty must have. 

What has wiled away the tedium of camp 
and barrack, of convalescent ward and trans- 
port? Drama. 

On what has the Y.M.C.A. placed most 
reliance for its recreative entertainment? 
Drama.* 

* This has also become true of the Y.W.C.A. Pageants, 
festivals, and plays have become part of their national recrea- 
tive program; in all places where women and girl workers are 
employed in great numbers, drama is the keynote of social 
solidarity; rehearsals taking place after working hours. 



6 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

It is not only in military but in civil life 
that this need is felt. The War Camp Com- 
munity Service, organized by the United 
States Government to deal with the problem 
of the soldier's leisure outside the camps, finds 
in drama one of the answers to the query: 
With what shall we fill the soldier's leisure 
hours? 

In all large cities Summer Play Schools 
have been organized to keep the children of 
soldiers from the demoralizing influence of 
playing on the streets while their mothers 
are at work. "He fights. She works. 
Meanwhile, what becomes of the children?" 
In all these Play Schools patriotic drama al- 
ready has its place as part of the day's pro- 
gram. 

Nor is this all. What has helped to speed 
up recruiting, Liberty Loans, Red Cross 
drives, Food and Health conservation? What 
eliminated three thousand miles of space? 
What brought " The Front " to our very 
doors, so that we could see and feel the im- 
mensity of the struggle? What made " No 



AMERICANIZATION THROUGH DRAMA 7 

Man's Land " into " Every Man's Land " 
for those of us here at home? Drama, and 
nothing else but drama. Everywhere, 
through every aspect of the war, drama is 
resurgent. 

It is a paradox that at present the silent 
drama speaks to the largest audience. And 
the service rendered by the movies in war 
time cannot be overestimated. That the si- 
lent drama has proved itself of immense 
practical value no one can deny. But if we 
are to become now and hereafter an articu- 
late nation then we need articulate drama 
more than inarticulate drama. Therefore all 
that is done along the lines of articulate 
drama is of greater import though it 
reaches a minority rather than a majority 
audience. For in time the minority audi- 
ence must become the majority audience, or 
the drama will have failed of its full birth- 
right of splendor. 

War has revealed our national greatness. 
It has also revealed our national weaknesses. 
And chief among these weaknesses is the 



8 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

lack of national solidarity. Our American 
citizens have not been American enough: our 
foreign citizens after years in this country, 
are still — our foreign citizens. 

The war has begun the welding: after the 
war the work of Americanization must go on. 
Throughout the length and breadth of the 
country patriotic leagues and societies are 
being formed to bring this about. The 
democracy of the world has been in danger; 
it will be won back at a terrific cost. And in 
order that these dead shall not have died in 
vain all that they fought for must continue 
to be held before the eyes of the American 
people. Through school and church and set- 
tlement, through patriotic leagues, through 
social and civic centers this work of Ameri- 
canization must go on. The ideal for which 
thousands of men are giving their lives must 
not be allowed to perish. And it is in this 
work of Americanization that the drama 
will be teacher, interpreter, commemorator. 
It will be drama by Americans for Amer- 
icans. 



AMERICANIZATION THROUGH DRAMA 9 

Americanization through drama will be 
part of the program of every club, school, 
settlement, and social center. It will be part 
of the work of every Little Independent The- 
atre and a major part of the work of every 
civic celebration in every city throughout the 
country. Americanization may or may not 
be emphasized in the professional theatre; 
but in all drama that is of the people, by the 
people, for the people it will have a perma- 
nent place. This was presaged even before 
the war when Little Independent Theatres 
such as those of Detroit, Michigan; Gales- 
burg, Illinois; Kansas City, Kansas; Water- 
loo, Iowa; and the Wisconsin Players, called 
for plays by local playwrights interpretative 
of the life of the district in which these Little 
Independent Theatres were situated; plays 
that would make for local patriotism and 
quickened interest. 

And, strangely enough, amongst the vast 
destructive things that this war has done, it 
may accomplish something constructive for 
American drama by developing plays about 



10 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

American life. And this is something of 
which we are deeply in need. For where 
are the playwrights who interpret the folk 
of our seacoast as Synge interpreted the wild 
west coast of Ireland? Where are our play- 
wrights who give us plays of our manufac- 
turing cities that have the smack and tang 
of the work of Harold Brighouse or Stanley 
Houghton? There are a host of well-made 
ephemeral American plays dealing with dif- 
ferent sections of this country that give us the 
outside but not the inside of the thing they 
interpret. They are plays of plot rather than 
of character. There is no deep racial feel- 
ing manifest in them. Where are the play- 
wrights who do for America what the Irish 
playwrights and Players have done for Ire- 
land, or what the Manchester School has 
done for England? Here and there, in 
American one-act plays such as Susan Glas- 
pell's study of Mid-western farm life called 
Trifles, in some of Percy Mackaye's Yankee 
Fantasies, in brief plays by Zona Gale and 
Alice Brown, in the terse, trenchant sea 



AMERICANIZATION THROUGH DRAMA 11 

studies of Eugene O'Neill America is find- 
ing her realistic interpreters. 

Even before we entered into the war sev- 
eral Little Independent Theatres like that 
of Cleveland, stressed the socializing force of 
the drama; for in Cleveland it is planned to 
make the Little Theatre a center for the art 
of its foreign-born as well as its American 
citizens, realizing that to create and appre- 
ciate in common accord makes for true civic 
solidarity. 

Pageant after pageant has already shown 
the struggle, the self-sacrifice, the valor by 
which our nation was upbuilt. Everything 
that makes the people of a nation work to- 
gether, play together and appreciate to- 
gether, is a national asset. Our recent 
Fourth of July Celebrations, our Christmas 
Community Celebrations are movements in 
this direction — movements that strengthen na- 
tional ties just as family reunions strengthen 
family ties. These gatherings are to the 
cities what Old Home Week is to little New 
England towns. And it is at these celebra- 



12 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

tions that the ideal of democracy can be kept 
shining, alike through precept and through 
practice. These are the times, when people 
are stirred and emotionally united, that ideas 
can be driven home. 

The most unlettered immigrant can under- 
stand the symbol of America lifting the bur- 
den from the back of the oppressed of other 
nations who come to dwell beneath her flag. 
He will understand what it means to see the 
chains of autocracy struck off by the strength 
of democracy. He will realize what it means 
when Liberty and Opportunity bid the alien 
newcomer welcome. And this will be the 
moment to ask the foreign-born collectively 
and individually what gifts of heart and soul, 
of loyalty and service they bring to America 
in return for what she has given them. 

Our national holidays, our days of com- 
memoration or festival, — days like the Fourth 
of July and Labor Day and Christmas will, 
in the years that are coming, take on new 
significance. They will become Americaniza- 
tion days. And because of them every city 



AMERICANIZATION THROUGH DRAMA 13 

in this land will have its stadium or outdoor 
theatre, as well as its Independent Theatre. 
Each city will work out its own dramatic 
plan or schedule; for these celebrations must 
not be allowed to become stale. They must 
not be repetitious. 

This can be avoided by accenting different 
holidays on different years; using different 
civic groups each year, and by having very 
simple celebrations some years, with more 
elaborate celebrations occurring at intervals 
of four or five years. 

Nor must certain forms of drama be made 
monotonous by too frequent use. Every- 
thing depends on keeping this impulse fresh 
and glowing. It is not alone the pageant 
and the play that must be used ; but all forms 
of drama — the festival, the pantomime, the 
masque; dance-drama; processional; and sim- 
ple folk celebrations. 

The art workers of every city will find 
scope for their patriotic powers through serv- 
ing the art that includes all arts, the art of 
drama. Music, light, color, dance that is like 



14 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

rhythmic sculpture — all these will be co-ordi- 
nated. And it is well that it should be so. 
For, however we may hide our eyes from the 
fact, commercialism is our national blot on 
the 'scutcheon. And only through the love 
of beauty which is the love of art can com- 
mercialism be overcome. Art is forever the 
foe of commercialism, and until a love of it 
seeps through all classes of society we can- 
not cease to become a commercial country. 
Until we come permanently to care for the 
immaterial rather than the material, for the 
imperishable rather than the perishable, the 
blot on the 'scutcheon cannot be removed. 
And for the sake of our national honor we 
cannot let it remain. We must make the 
word Americanism mean more than it ever 
has before. And drama, the most dynamic 
of the arts, stands ready to help us. These 
war years have proved that it is vital to our 
national life. It was through national fervor 
that the drama first had its birth. We have 
ignored its power too long. 



II 



THE UNIFICATION OF YOUR TOWN 
THROUGH DRAMA 

WHY is it that when it has been proved 
time and time again — and now most 
of all — that drama is a dynamic 
force that we either neglect it altogether or 
make such futile and sporadic use of it in the 
life of our towns and cities ? Why is it that all 
that could be done through drama is con- 
sciously or unconsciously neglected? Why 
is it that this force has never been put to 
use as a power for Americanism? Why is it 
that several places that have made an effort 
in this direction quickly weary of well doing, 
and give up the work after the first few at- 
tempts, where the foundations are only half 
laid? 

There are several reasons, all of which ap- 
pear to be real reasons. Let us make a list 

15 



16 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

of them, standing them up like nine pins, 
against which we shall later roll the ball of 
common sense, trusting that they will go 
down before it as most obstacles do. In 
other words, since something is lacking, let 
us take up these dramatic Lacks and Diffi- 
culties, and answer them categorically, one 
by one. 

1. The first and most portentous difficulty 
seems to be the lack of a definite dramatic 
program, covering a space of years, each step 
in this program leading logically to the next. 

2. Lack of Co-ordination. 

3. Lack of Vision. 

4. Lack of a Centralizing Point where 
plans can be discussed. 

5. Lack of Leadership. 

6. Lack of Time. 

7. Lack of Money. 

8. Lack of Initiative. 

9. Lack of an Art Standard. 

10. Willingness to take something "just 
as good." 



UNIFICATION THROUGH DRAMA 17 

Let us proceed against these difficulties: — 
1. Lack of Definite Program. 

Many cities have been unified through a 
pageant, a masque, a festival, or a great out- 
door play wherein large numbers of people 
have participated, and then this plan has been 
dropped. Now to give a play or pageant of 
this scope every year is too exhausting. 
Moreover, even though splendidly done such 
a thing becomes monotonous, and under mo- 
notony enthusiasm dies, inspiration ceases. 

It is a wise and wonderful thing to be will- 
ing to begin with little and work toward 
more. The trouble is in this country that too 
many cities, dramatically speaking, begin 
with much and work back to little. The re- 
sult is an appalling dramatic waste — waste 
of effort, time, and spirit that with a future- 
looking plan could so readily be conserved. 
What is needed is a dramatic chart or pro- 
gram. This program can be compared to a 
necklace in which large beads alternate with 
small beads: yet the whole necklace, because 
it has been definitely planned and the beads 



18 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

strung in accordance with that plan, will have 
charm, unity, significance. 



•DoonooonoooDooQ- 

The small beads represent the small but 
significant dramatic unifications which occur 
during a series of consecutive years: the large 
beads represent the large civic festivals which 
occur at intervals. All are strung on one 
cord: each is a uniting link leading to the 
next link. 

What could be simpler or more easy of ac- 
complishment than to hav« a definite chart 
or program that would be a civic necklace? 

The beads may vary in carving and color, 
as do the beads of the Orient. But the final 
effect must have oneness and symmetry. 

And this is what a dramatic chart can help 
to do. 

The chart must be planned so that mo- 
notony will be avoided; so that the burden 
does not fall year after year on the same 



UNIFICATION THROUGH DRAMA 19 

group; so that unification and through this 
Americanization can be striven for; so that 
time, money, and energy will be conserved; 
so that local and group patriotism will be 
stirred to the utmost; so that a high art 
standard will be reached and maintained. 

Then, too, this chart must be arranged so 
that it will interest the youth of the com- 
munity as well as the older people; so that 
it will appeal to both cultivated and unculti- 
vated, sophisticate and unsophisticate. 

As far as the author knows no municipal 
dramatic charts have as yet been published, 
and the one that is given in this book is 
placed here merely as a suggestion and not 
in a spirit of dogmatizing; for, as has been 
said in the preface, this is a Manual of Sug- 
gestion. 

2. Lack of Co-ordination: Lack of Knowl- 
edge of How to Unify a Town Through 
Drama: Lack of Knowledge as to How 
the Work of Americanization Can Be 
Set Afoot 




20 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

The unification of a city through drama is 
not a new idea. Every military parade, every 
Red Cross procession, every Labor Day 
parade, and every Historical Pageant has in 
it the power of unification. And in that uni- 
fication Americanization is latent. 

An idea seems to be abroad in the land 
that in order to unify towns through drama 
there must be a continual succession of 
pageants or festivals in which at least half 
or a quarter of the town participates. Noth- 
ing could be further from the fact. A large 
pageant or festival has amazing unifying 
power. Yet in ratio so has a play that can 
be repeated in every part of the town until 
its message has seeped through the very life 
of the community. 

Different holidays can be emphasized: dif- 
ferent groups made responsible for their 
dramatic quota in succeeding years. 

One year it may be the city's patriotic 
societies; next its dramatic clubs; or its for- 
eign citizen leagues; or its high schools and 
local colleges and academies. Or it may be 



UNIFICATION THROUGH DRAMA 21 

the combined efforts of adult foreign-born 
citizens one year, and little citizens the next. 
The churches, the settlements, the art guilds 
can each have their year. A thorough unifi- 
cation will depend on the Dramatic Chart. 
The technique of dramatic unification differs 
with the size of the town. The largest city 
has naturally the most problems to solve. 
Group pride, group effort, group enthusiasm, 
group patriotism must be roused. The spirit 
of the guild workers of the Middle Ages, of 
the cathedral builders, artists and artisans, 
can be turned in our age into dramatic chan- 
nels. 

From a practical point of view Ameri- 
canization will most quickly be gained by 
knowing what your city most needs to Ameri- 
canize it, or to lift it: and then setting this 
thing before the citizens by dramatic emphasis. 
Emphasize this idea or ideal. Hammer at it. 
Point it. Underscore it. Drive it home. 

In order to do this you will have to empha- 
size one idea at a time instead of half a 
dozen different ideas. Unify the city each 



22 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

year through a definite dramatic object. 
And this holds good in both the large and 
the small town. 

In cities both large and small too many- 
dramatic groups work independently of each 
other. There is no pulling together of all 
the threads, no oneness of impression. There 
are a dozen different goals instead of one 
goal. 

3. Lack of Vision. 

This lack comes largely from not being 
able to plan ahead : to see what has been done 
as a basis for what might be done. But 
through the tremendous Renaissance of pa- 
triotic drama that is going on at present this 
lack is fast disappearing. 

4. Lack of a Centralizing Place Where 

Plans Can Be Discussed. 

If your town is to be unified through 

drama there must be some place of creative 

atmosphere where artists and art workers 

can meet to discuss their plans; where charts, 



UNIFICATION THROUGH DRAMA 23 

diagrams, books, and catalogues can be kept. 
There must be a central gathering place. 
The towns that have accomplished the most 
along these lines — Detroit, Galesburg, Cleve- 
land, and others — have central gathering 
places. The spirit of Drama must have a 
home. House it, and it will begin to work 
miracles. Therefore a Little Independent 
Theatre or an Outdoor Theatre is a prime 
necessity. You can begin with one or the 
other. Later, as the work grows, you will 
have to have both. 

5. Lack of Leadership. 

Lack of leadership will cease in any town 
as soon as the drama is given a home. A 
theatre draws art workers to it as with a 
magnet. Out of the work done a local leader 
will arise; or a group of leaders; or as in 
the case of Detroit, there will be a " Dra- 
matic Engineer " summoned by the com- 
munity from some other place. So far in 
this country "dramatic engineers" are few; 
yet the list is growing. 



24 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

Lack of leadership often comes from lack 
of a dramatic center in which leadership can 
develop. 

6. Lack of Time (Fatigue). 

Often a town will fail to make the most 
of its dramatic opportunities because its citi- 
zens who should be leaders plead lack of 
time. But it can be pointed out to them 
that a dramatic schedule or chart saves time. 

Because of the remembered fatigue con- 
nected with some large festival people are 
often inimical to communal drama. This is 
because a plan embracing small efforts has 
not been made clear to them. When it is 
made clear to them that their services will be 
required only in certain years this feeling will 
vanish. 

7. Lack of Money. 

This plea, one of the oftenest made next 
to lack of time, is utterly preposterous when 
what is at stake is considered: is worse than 
preposterous when one considers that such 



UNIFICATION THROUGH DRAMA 25 

a dynamic group as the Washington Square 
Players began with a thousand dollars capi- 
tal: a sum which has served to start many a 
significant Little Theatre, North, South, 
East, West. 

There should be a definite budget, and the 
dramatic chart must be made to fit it. This 
budget will increase as time goes on, since 
nothing succeeds like success. Thousands of 
dollars are wasted in municipal parades that 
are from an art and civic point of view ut- 
terly worthless. Start your plan as have all 
dramatic pioneers and the money will be 
forthcoming. 

It cannot be reiterated too often that it is 
spirit and not money that counts. But the 
dramatic unification fund cannot be left to 
chance. A practical sum must be collected 
or appropriated, and all plans must be in 
accordance with that sum. 

And in connection with the smallness of 
the sum let it be said again: "Do not be 
afraid of simplicity/' 

Genuine artistic leadership always means 



26 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

actual economy in the end; for your true 
" dramatic engineer " has a knowledge of 
subtle yet inexpensive effects that can be 
employed to heighten simple productions. 
There must be no waste of either effort or 
material if the chart is to succeed. The cos- 
tumes of each play and festival must be 
saved so that they can be used again and 
again either through being re-dyed or re- 
combined. What is used in a play this year 
can be re-used next year or the year after 
with a marvelous effect of newness and fresh- 
ness if only the plans are laid ahead. 

8. Lack of Initiative. 

Lack of initiative is one of the worst lacks 
of all, but a definite program or chart can 
help to rectify it where it exists. Lack of 
initiative often comes from a lack of vision; 
from being unable to see what can be ac- 
complished. Lack of any real love for or 
enthusiasm for art often lies at the base of 
it. Timidity is another reason for it. Lack 
of knowledge another. Local lethargy an- 



UNIFICATION THROUGH DRAMA 27 

other. But the great war has so galvanized 
communities into action that now the mists 
of local inanition can be quickly dispersed 
by the sun of effort. It is the leaders in 
your community that will have to stir the 
laggards. This may be done through meet- 
ings, talks, or through the impulse of the 
drama itself. Nothing so opens people's 
eyes as a fine and stirring performance. 

9. Lack of an Art Standard. 

Here we come face to face with a na- 
tional deficiency which only time and effort 
can remedy. But that it is being remedied 
and in some cases swiftly remedied, no one 
can question. And for this the Little The- 
atres that have sprung up almost overnight 
in many of our towns are largely responsible. 

It cannot be said too often that any mes- 
sage America is to give her people through 
drama must have art in the telling, if the 
message is to reach them and remain with 
them. All the great stories and poems of the 
world have lived in the hearts of succeeding 



28 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

generations because they have had art in the 
telling. The import of the message must 
be equaled by the art through which it is 
conveyed. Too much of the work of com- 
munity drama is ragged and not well put 
together. This sometimes comes from at- 
tempting too much in too short a space of 
time. A small thing perfectly done is bet- 
ter than a large thing imperfectly done, 
though many communities have yet to learn 
this fact. 

For some reason or other America has al- 
ways had a respect for numbers. " We had 
a big festival "* or " We gave a play with 
three hundred people in it " sounds better 
to some ears than to say: "We did such 
and such with a small cast, and we came near 
doing it perfectly." This regard for totality 
seems to be a survival of the spirit " 40 — 
ELEPHANTS— 40 " of the old circus days. 
The drama with a large cast is epical; the 
drama with a small cast is lyrical: one is 
magnificent; the other gem-like. The value 
of each is equal. 



UNIFICATION THROUGH DRAMA 29 

But in this country we have had to learn to 
appreciate the smaller work of art. In dis- 
cussing this, " the loveliness of little things," 
Clayton Hamilton has this to say in Prob- 
lems of the Playwright: 

"It is one of the paradoxes of art that 
its very finest works are nearly always minor 
works. The pursuit of perfectness is in- 
compatible with the ambition for amplitude, 
and a vast creation can seldom be completely 
fine. A cameo is a more perfect thing than a 
cathedral. ..." 

This is why a small production is often a 
better thing for a town than too large a 
production. That is why a play or a masque 
is sometimes a far better choice than a 
pageant to drive home any truth, national 
or local. A clear, salient, unforgettable dra- 
matic impression must be made instead of a 
blurred impression. And much of our dra- 
matic work is blurred — blurred by haste, by 
carelessness, by indifference, and lack of 
standard. 

What is tawdry and cheap and ephemeral 



SO PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

must be banished. And the establishment of 
a Little Independent Theatre with a high 
art standard will help to raise the whole 
dramatic standard of a town by showing 
people what is good and what is not. This 
is not a dream, but a fact. It has already 
been proved in several cities. Amongst them, 
Detroit. 

Three fine one-act plays with a definite 
idea behind them or one longer play of the 
same type repeated through all the sections 
of the town until everyone has had a chance 
to see it is better than a dozen ill-done festi- 
vals produced throughout the year. 

Many people who are interested in com- 
munal drama ignore what the professional 
theatre at its best has to teach them and 
they do themselves and the mighty art of the 
theatre a grievous wrong. For all the finest 
art of the drama as we know it stems from 
the theatre and must stem back into the 
theatre again. 

" Ignore the theatre," says Granville Bar- 
ker, " and the theatre revenges itself." 



UNIFICATION THROUGH DRAMA 31 

Above all, this movement should not be 
musty and scholastic. It should have free- 
dom and vitality. It cannot be dry-as-dust 
and savor too much of the schoolroom. It 
must have simplicity, yes. But it must have 
color, sweep, emotion, climax. And these 
things are forever conserved in the profes- 
sional theatre at its best. 

Through participation we will not only be 
unifying and Americanizing our national life 
but we will be sending back to the theatre of 
the future — perhaps to our National Theatre 
— creative, articulate, American audiences 
that will demand the best. And as has been 
said a thousand times, the " Power of De- 
mand lies in the hands of the audience." * 

We are continually harking back to the 
Greek and Elizabethan dramatists without 
stopping to consider the creative audiences 

* The Drama League, Riggs Building, Washington, D. C, is 
working to make appreciative audiences, and reaching every 
part of the country. Anyone can join by sending one dollar, 
and it is to be hoped that every reader of this book has joined, 
or will. Also, in a few brief years, the Little Theatre move- 
ment has done much to raise the standard of appreciation 
throughout the country. 



32 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

to which they played — audiences to whom 
beauty and poetry were as requisite as bread. 
For every play is a collaborated effort. 
Without that strange quickening which is 
shared by audience and dramatist no play 
can really live. And where are Democracy's 
imaginative audiences? If Democracy is to 
come to its full flower we must see that they 
exist. We must send an imaginative, 
homogeneous American audience into the 
theatre. 

10. Willingness to Take Something "Just 
as Good" if the Thing Can Be Done 
Easily. 
Nothing that influences the life of a great 

nation can be too good. The only fear is 

that it will not be good enough. 



ni 



DRAMA CHART OR PROGRAM OF 
PROGRESS 

THIS program is by no means meant to 
be a rigid one. It is not intended as 
anything but an outline of what might 
be done: a list of suggestions rather than any 
wish to dogmatize.* 

Any City's or Town's Dramatic Equip- 
ment should consist of (at least) : 

1. A Little Theatre (focusing the art life 
of the community). 

2. A Small, Inexpensive, Easily Made 
Portable Theatre to be Used in Connection 
with the Little Theatre. 

3. An Outdoor Theatre or Stadium. 

* Considering the need for it an astonishingly small amount 
of American Historical Drama is available: the writing of it 
lies in the future. Until it comes, workers must be content 
with what is now available. 



34 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

1. Community drama is dependent upon 
music. The programs of all municipal bands 
and orchestras should be made up with ref- 
erence to the city's dramatic schedule. That 
is, the music that can be used to accompany 
symbolic dances, or dramatic action in parks 
or outdoor theatres also can be used for 
municipal concerts, thus serving two pur- 
poses. 

2. The programs of all municipal or com- 
munity choruses should be planned in direct 
relation to the city's dramatic program. 



DRAMATIC PROGRAM 

Americanization Year 

(First Year) 

An Outdoor Masque showing the relation 
of foreign-born citizens to America. Acted 
by a chosen cast of American and foreign- 
born citizens. Produced on the Fourth of 
July, and repeated on Labor Day. 



DRAMA CHART 35 

Establishment of a Little Independent 

Theatre. 

This theatre's program to include the pro- 
duction of at least six one-act patriotic 
plays * which will be repeated in all parts 
of the city in parks and playgrounds or on 
the porticos of City Halls and libraries, etc. 
This can be done through the establishment 
of a Little Portable Theatre. 

Patriotic Programs by Municipal Bands. 

Patriotic Songs by Community Choruses. 

FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

Three or four one-act patriotic plays for 
high schools, produced in consultation with 
the Little Theatre director or committee. 
Or a three- or four-act play of the same 
type. 



* Owing to the meager supply of Patriotic Plays available, 
plays of American history or character can, if necessary, be 
substituted. For a list of such plays, see pages 98 and 106 
of this volume. 



36 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

Three one-act patriotic plays for the Grade 
Schools. 

These plays to be repeated in all parts 
of the city and to be produced in connection 
with the Little Theatre's director or com- 
mittee. 

Or a simple historical pageant may be 
given on a general patriotic theme which 
will unite all the schools. 



CHRISTMAS COMMUNITY CELEBRATION 
AROUND THE TREE OF LIGHT 

Instead of simply singing the traditional 
carols, have the Tree of Light dark until Lib- 
erty appears with her uplifted torch. Then 
have all the lights on the tree flare up. One 
or two of the old carols may be introduced; 
but the rest of the carols should be patriotic 
ones led by Liberty, songs which are neither 
of the North or South or East or West; 
but distinctly American, like Katharine Lee 
Bates' " America the Beautiful " and Arthur 
Farwell's " Hymn to Liberty." 



DRAMA CHART 37 

All properties and costumes of all cele- 
brations to be conserved until they are needed 
again. 

American Myths 
'(Second Year) 

The Establishment of an Outdoor Theatre. 

Hiawatha * given on a large scale with a 
great many symbolic dances interwoven. 
Corn dance, dance of fireflies; of winds; of 
nature forces; Spirits of the Sunset, etc., 
etc. The whole production to be finely done. 
To be acted by the local colleges and high 
schools. 

Small Spring festivals in parks and play- 
grounds woven around Indian myths. The 

*We are accustomed to think of Hiawatha as something 
rather childish, yet staged as it should be, with a wealth of 
color, and with superb lighting effects, it could give as surely 
as any Greek Drama the sense of man's battle with Fate, the 
supreme antagonist: and there could be wonderfully brought 
out the theme of the Four Seasons which runs through it, from 
the lyric love passages of Spring to Winter and Death at the 
end. The great unheeding forces of nature could be mystically 
suggested throughout. The real play of Hiawatha has never 
yet been written. The writing of It lies in the future. 



38 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

coming of Spring and Winter, the story of 
the Moccasin Flower, etc., etc. On no ac- 
count must the main theme, Hiawatha, be 
touched upon in any minor festival, or it will 
become stale. 

Indian Music Played by the Municipal Band. 

Indian programs or music sung by the 
community chorus (Cadman, Farwell, Cole- 
ridge-Taylor) . 

In the Little Theatre plays interpretative 
of different sections of America, the prairies, 
Wisconsin, mining districts, the Great Lakes, 
New York, the South, New England, by 
such authors as Alice Brown, Eugene O'Neill, 
Percy Mackaye, Susan Glaspell, Zona Gale, 
William Ellery Leonard, etc., etc. See 
pages 110 and 111 of this volume. 

Community Christmas Celebration. 

American historic festival given by the 
different churches of the city. 

1. Christmas carols of Old England; then 
a few native Indian songs. Then Martin 



DRAMA CHART S9 

Luther's " A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," 
always connected with New England. Then 
Oliver Holden's " Coronation," connected 
with the XVIIIth Century in America. 
Then Phillips Brooks' " Little Town of Beth- 
lehem," connected with the XlXth century. 
Then Katharine Lee Bates' " America the 
Beautiful," connected with our own time. 
Each group to be in the costume of its cen- 
tury, 

or 
Each group may be led by a singer in a cos- 
tume suggestive of the particular century 
connected with the special carol or hymn. 

Colonization Year, 

(Third Year) 

Simple Outdoor Play. 

Given on a much smaller scale than Hia- 
watha, dealing with American settlement or 
colonization. (Such plays as Lily Long's 
Radisson or James Oppenheim's The Pio- 
neers.) 



40 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

In the Little Theatre. 

Comparative programs of world plays 
(since all the world helped to discover and 
colonize America). Plays by English, Irish, 
Italian, French, and Scandinavian authors, 
etc., etc. 

Christmas Celebration Around the Tree of 

Light. 

Christmas carols of the different nations 
which sent colonizers to America: English, 
French, Russian, Italian, Scandinavian, etc., 
etc. 

FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

Comparative one-act plays in high schools, 
dealing with frontier and pioneer life or with 
Pilgrim or Puritan life. 

Long play in grade schools, dealing with 
any of these themes. 

In the parks and playgrounds the May- 
pole of Merry Mount, showing the first 
Mayday in New England. 



DRAMA CHART 41 

American Author Year 
(Fourth Year) 

Plays by American Authors in the Little 

Theatre. 
Plays in the High Schools and Colleges by 

American Authors {such as " Little 

Women/' etc., etc.). 
In the Grade Schools. Plays by American 

Authors. 
Fourth of July Celebration by Foreign-born 

and American Children. 

Since Mrs. Elizabeth Goose (or Vergoose, 
as the name originally was) was born in Bos- 
ton in the XVIIIth century, she comes under 
the heading of an American author, so a 
Mother Goose Festival for all the children 
of the city, with songs and dances woven into 
it, would be appropriate. It would give 
opportunity for lovely color schemes, since 
all the garden of Mary, Mary Quite Contrary 
could be there, as well as the followers of 
Daffydowndilly in their gay daffodil-colored 
costumes. A dance of the Alphabet Children 



42 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

could spell out quaint messages, and conceits, 
each child wearing a letter like a sandwich 
man, the whole dance to be done in a Pierrot 
effect of black and white. In the rich colors 
suggested by the pictures of Maxfleld Par- 
rish could come Old King Cole and his Fid- 
dlers Three; The Four and Twenty Black- 
birds could emerge, singing, from a huge pie. 
Shepherd dances could accompany Little Bo- 
Peep; Dances of Haymakers in quaint cos- 
tumes could be woven about Little Boy Blue. 
Athletics could be introduced by means of a 
tall candlestick over which Jack-Be-Nimble 
could jump. Indeed, the whole festival could 
be a tribute to Mother Goose, resembling in 
its way Grainger's Tribute to Foster. At the 
very end there might appear a huge shoe, 
dragged in by the merrymakers, and presided 
over by the Old Woman Who Lived in a 
Shoe. At the end, the Old Woman Who 
Lives in the Shoe tosses off her disguise and 
appears as America. Into the heel of the 
shoe go all the foreign little citizens. With 
their everyday clothes they wear caps and 



DRAMA CHART 43 

aprons or kerchiefs that are distinguishing 
badges of their different countries. These 
they quickly take off inside the shoe and 
emerge from the toe of the shoe as Little 
American citizens with red, white, and blue 
caps on their heads, and the Stars and Stripes 
in their hands. 

Labor Day. 

Parade of Units from the Labor Unions, 
and a re-using of all The Mother Goose Fes- 
tival material by relating it to labor, and 
placing the young people, skilfully grouped, 
on simple floats. Thus the Pie of the Black- 
birds can represent the Bakers' Union; 
Old King Cole, the Musicians' Union; the 
Shoe , the Shoemakers' Union; the Alphabet 
Children, the Printers' Union; a study of 
Mother Goose will reveal something to fit 
every trade under the sun, and the floats, 
though simple, could be whimsical and pretty. 
The float " settings " could be copied from 
Mother Goose as illustrated by Kate Green- 
away, and by Maxfield Parrish, the first being 



44 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

light in color effects and the second richer 
and more somber. 



Christmas Community Celebration Around 
Tree of Light. 
Children's festival, children's Christmas 

carols; Santa Claus presiding. 

Music by American Composers Given by Mu- 
nicipal Bands. 

Songs by American Authors. Given by Com- 
munity Choruses.. (Traditional American 
music might be given — the vast ballad lore 
of the Kentucky Mountains, now collected 
by Cecil Sharpe and others.) 

Local History Year 

[(Fifth Year); 

Pageant of Local History for Fourth of July. 
In the Little Theatre a program of experi- 
mental plays — that is, plays which make ex- 
periments along the line of lighting, styliza- 
tion, etc. All city schools and city organiza- 
tions to work for the Pageant. 



DRAMA CHART 45 

Labor Day. 

A float parade, re-using all the costumes of 
the Pageant, showing the development of 
labor in this country, both in the home and 
out of it. (Might be called The Pageant of 
the Lineage of Labor.) It might show a his- 
tory of labor in America, first in the home, 
and then out of it. 

All costumes used in all former celebrations 
to be re-dyed and re-vamped and added to 
the new Pageant costumes. 

Municipal Band and Community Choruses 
to use music of the Pageant throughout the 
city. 



IV 



THE LITTLE INDEPENDENT THEATRE 
AND YOUR TOWN 

THE very fact that war is apt to quench 
the torch of art is one reason why all 
the art forces that we have striven to 
kindle should be conserved in war time. Paris 
and Venice have taken every precaution to 
guard their art treasures. America has com- 
paratively few native art treasures: in fact, 
one of the greatest art treasures she has is her 
newly wakened communal art spirit. This 
must not be allowed to die. Although the 
other arts in this country have languished 
during the war, drama has received a quick- 
ening impetus, and this impetus should be 
fostered, and conserved; in especial because 
drama holds within itself the essence of all 
the arts. 

46 



THE LITTLE INDEPENDENT THEATRE 47 

And if Americanization is to be our chief 
end and aim during and after the war, every 
city must have its civic art center where the 
fire on the altar is kept alive; in other words, 
its drama center where an art standard is 
established and maintained, in order that 
the work of Americanization through drama 
will be equal to its high purpose. To try to 
accomplish this work without an art standard 
is like putting a beautiful goddess into 
slovenly raiment, and then bidding her give 
her message to the world. 

All of the Little Independent Theatres or 
nearly all,* are doing patriotic work, either 
through the production of stirringly patriotic 
one-act plays; through performances for the 
Red Cross; or through other lines of active 
service. The Little Theatre at Erie, Pennsyl- 
vania, has adopted a French war orphan as 
a charge du theatre, and the spirit which has 
kept this Little Theatre alive in war time is 

* A complete history of the Little Theatre movement can be 
found in The Little Theatre in the United States by Constance 
D'Arcy Mackay, published by Henry Holt and Company. 
$2.00 net. 



48 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

excellently expressed in its interesting cir- 
cular: 

" Do you think the Playhouse should close 
in war time? It is no trivial thing to keep 
a light in the window and the home fires 
burning. 

" The war is breaking up our petty inter- 
ests and small circles, and merges us into a 
great relationship. We have become fellow- 
travelers on the same road, and must share 
our joys as we share our griefs. We must 
keep alive those things which make for neigh- 
borliness. . . . 

"All life is service. The fullest develop- 
ment of the individual life — and therefore its 
greatest joy — lies in its contribution to the 
common will and to the common happiness. 

" The Little Playhouse is an asset to Erie. 
Are you? 

" The Little Playhouse is a place and an 
idea. The place is one of entertainment; the 
idea is community service. The place vital- 
ized by the idea becomes a contrate expres- 
sion of civic pride. 



THE LITTLE INDEPENDENT THEATRE 49 

' The Little Playhouse is the beginning of 
a community center and has a threefold pur- 
pose to encourage and develop every kind of 
artistic endeavor in the city. 

" To promote neighborliness by bringing 
people together and interesting them in one 
another. To add something to the joy of 
life by the presentation of good music and 
worth while plays." 

The Erie Community Chorus (one of the 
first of its kind to be organized in America) 
and the Erie Community Orchestra both have 
their homes in the Playhouse. 

Indeed, this Little Playhouse represents 
signally what can be done by a Little Theatre. 
Anyone who has an idea to express may bring 
that idea to the Little Playhouse. 

The work toward Americanization done by 
the Neighborhood Playhouse on Grand Street, 
New York City, is almost too well known to 
need citation. This charming little theatre is 
situated in the midst of the Jewish immigrant 
district, and on its stage are given notably 
fine plays in Yiddish and English; festivals 



50 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

in which people of the neighborhood take part 
under skilled direction as well as plays by 
companies of professional actors from uptown. 
Movies of a high type are also given here. 
The best in art is put within the reach of 
immigrant pocketbooks and the Neighborhood 
Playhouse thus becomes the focusing point 
of a vast overcrowded district. Some years 
ago under the auspices of this theatre a 
pageant was given outdoors in Henry Street. 
A block of this congested thoroughfare was 
roped off and the surrounding tenements 
formed the balconies of this improvised audi- 
torium, while on the city pavement the 
pageant players acted episode after episode. 
It has already been proved that as a focus- 
ing point for a city's art life nothing equals 
a Little Theatre. It can be made the hub, 
and from it can radiate the spokes of the 
wheel that will reach into every section of 
the city. Used as it should be used it can 
become a clearing house of art. Here pa- 
triotic or symbolic pageants, festivals, and 
masques can be planned. Here the civic cele- 



THE LITTLE INDEPENDENT THEATRE 51 

brations for Fourth of July and Community 
Christmas Trees discussed. Here all the com- 
munal dramatic forces of the city can be co- 
ordinated. And here, last but not least, the 
American playwright can be given his oppor- 
tunity; for the Little Independent Theatres 
have given and are giving the native author 
a chance to express himself and the life around 
him. Through these Little Theatres we feel 
the first dim gropings for a National Theatre 
that shall worthily interpret America for 
Americans. 

Even so far the work that has been ac- 
complished by Little Independent Theatres 
in their task for city unification is wonder- 
fully inspiriting. Take as an example the 
Arts and Crafts Theatre of Detroit, Michi- 
gan. This theatre is the centralizing point 
for the art workers of its community. It has 
its regular subscription audience; its student 
audience that is eager to learn all that can 
be learned; its teacher audience composed 
of teachers from the public schools who are 
bringing back to their public school produc- 



52 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

tions all that they have learned in the Arts 
and Crafts Theatre of color and simplicity, 
of beauty and stylization, and, above all, of 
economy of means. 

The Arts and Crafts Theatre is thus rais- 
ing the dramatic standard of the whole city. 
It is educating not just the few, but the 
many. It is making the demand for beauty 
universal. It does not attempt to do too 
much; but does what it does supremely well. 
Each year it increases its scope and enters 
more and more deeply into the life of De- 
troit. It gives, through a portable theatre, 
productions in the public schools, showing 
what the standard of such productions should 
be. It shows how to use one set of inexpen- 
sive scenery for a dozen different plays. 

Every year the director of the Arts and 
Crafts Theatre, Mr. Sam Hume, produces a 
simple and lovely outdoor masque that sets 
the standard for all outdoor productions in 
Detroit. 

The Little Vagabond Theatre of Balti- 
more besides its splendid production of plays 



THE LITTLE INDEPENDENT THEATRE 53 

also works to maintain a high art standard 
in the public schools and has specimen pro- 
ductions of young people's plays where 
marked stress is laid on simple yet imagina- 
tive scenery. Other Little Theatres, such as 
that of Galesburg, Illinois, plan a Christmas 
Community Celebration around the Tree of 
Light; while the Little Theatre of Fargo de- 
vises agricultural pageants for the farming 
districts of North Dakota. The Little The- 
atre of Cleveland has already set the plan of 
Americanization afoot in its tiny playhouse. 
People are only touching the outside rim of 
what the Little Independent Theatres may 
accomplish for the community. There is so 
little expense connected with the running of 
a Little Theatre that it makes it possible for 
it to survive stressful times. Allowing for 
Little Theatres that have had to drop out, 
even in war time, Little Theatres have held 
together valiantly. The list of cities possess- 
ing Little Theatres or groups working toward 
Little Theatres comprises the following: 
In California — Berkeley, Los Angeles, 



54 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

Oakland, Sausalito, San Francisco, Santa 
Barbara. In Connecticut — Bridgeport, 
Greenwich, Hartford. In District of Co- 
lumbia — Washington. In Florida — Miami. 
In Illinois — Chicago, Evanston, Freeport, 
Lake Forest, Quincy. In Indiana — Evans- 
ville, Indianapolis. In Iowa — Waterloo. 
In Kansas — Kansas City. In Kentucky — 
Louisville. In Louisiana — New Orleans. 
In Maryland — Baltimore. In Massachusetts 
— Cambridge, Northampton. In Michigan — 
Ann Arbor, Detroit, Jackson, Kala- 
mazoo, Saginaw, Ypsilanti. In Minnesota 
— Duluth, Faribault, Minneapolis, St. Paul. 
In Missouri — Joplin. In Montana — Boze- 
man. In Nebraska — Lincoln. In New 
Hampshire — Plainfield. In New Jersey — 
Montclair, Newark, Perth Amboy. In New 
York — Buffalo, New York City, Rochester. 
In North Dakota — Fargo. In Ohio — Cin- 
cinnati, Columbus, Dayton, Greenville, To- 
ledo, Portsmouth. In Oklahoma — Bartlets- 
ville. In Oregon — Portland. In Pennsyl- 
vania — Allentown, Erie, Brookfield, Meads- 



THE LITTLE INDEPENDENT THEATRE r>5 

ville, Pittsburgh. In Tennessee — Knoxville. 
In Wisconsin — Madison, Milwaukee. 

Before the World War a thousand dollars 
a year sufficed to start and maintain many a 
Little Theatre until it was sufficiently on 
its feet to depend on its audience. It will 
now take twice this sum. Even its housing 
is a more or less simple matter once the 
fire laws are complied with. It can be or- 
ganized as a club, as the Provincetown Play- 
ers of New York City are organized, and 
thus eliminate theatre tax or license. 

For Little Theatres that pay no salaries 
to their players $2,000 a season seems to be 
the usual sum for maintenance, if strict econ- 
omy is practised. This sum, if the theatre is 
properly managed, is put back into the the- 
atre fund and whatever is made, over and 
above this, is paid out for any extra expenses 
the theatre may incur. 

To reduce the theatre budget to $2,000 
a season, someone in the Little Theatre 
group must have a knowledge of pigments; 
of how to build scenery from compo board 



56 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

as well as canvas; of how to use the draped 
stage, or, as it is technically called, the stage 
hung with curtains. Either the director or 
the theatre artist must also know how to 
use and re-use certain scenic effects in com- 
binations that will not be detected by the 
audience. This is where the ingenuity of 
the community is aroused. A knowledge 
of the use of inexpensive materials is also 
necessary, if the theatre is to be managed 
for this sum, for the inexpensiveness of the 
costumes depends upon how great or how 
beautiful an effect can be secured through 
sateen, cotton poplin, mercerized cotton, 
cheese cloth, and crepon. Here is where a 
knowledge of dyes is also invaluable. And 
last, but not least, if expense is to be kept 
down, there must be someone experienced in 
painting scenes with lights. This, if certain 
scenes have to be used again, will greatly les- 
sen their monotony for the audience. An 
outdoor scene painted with amber light can 
be made to appear quite differently when 
given a moonlit effect with blue and white 



THE LITTLE INDEPENDENT THEATRE 57 

lights. Such knowledge forms the stock-in- 
economy of every Little Theatre in this 
country. 

The reader of this chapter will have gath- 
ered from what has already been said that 
each Little Theatre works out its expense 
account differently, its budget being modified 
by the price of seats, the number of seats, 
and the number of performances per week 
or per month, as well as the policy of 
the particular theatre, and whether or not 
it is addicted to the subscription sys- 
tem. All these things have a bearing on the 
budget. 

Prices vary so in different parts of the 
country, and each Little Theatre has such 
individual problems to meet that any scale 
suggested for their maintenance must of ne- 
cessity be approximate. Rent is not the same 
in Chicago, Illinois, and in New Orleans, 
Louisiana, in Bridgeport and Baltimore. 
And rent is one of the chief problems con- 
nected with the Little Theatre. Then, too, 
a Little Theatre's policy has an immense deal 



58 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

to do with its upkeep. If the theatre build- 
ing is used all the time by the company play- 
ing and rehearsing in it, it naturally has a 
bearing on the general expense. If the the- 
atre is such that it can be let for concerts 
and lectures, it will help materially with 
the rent. The seating capacity also is a 
consideration, for it regulates the theatre tax. 
Every State in the Union has different laws 
regarding theatre taxation. 

As for the interior equipment of a Little 
Independent Theatre * it must have a stage 
raised not less than 24 inches from the floor 
and measuring not less than 24 feet wide, 25 
feet deep and 14 feet high with a proscenium 
opening not less than 20 or 22 feet wide. 
The space included in these measurements 
must be entirely free from all obstructions. 

* Data, pictures of interiors and exteriors of Little Theatres, 
expense budgets, descriptions of scene setting and lighting 
can be found in The Little Theatre in the United States, pub- 
lished by Henry Holt and Company, at $2.00 net. 

Complete details for painting and building scenes, and plates 
of scenes and costumes can be found in Costumes and Scenery 
for Amateurs, published by Henry Holt and Company, at 
$1.75 net. 

Both are by the author of this book. 



THE LITTLE INDEPENDENT THEATRE 59 

There must be at least two dressing rooms 
adjacent to the stage. These must be ade- 
quately ventilated, lighted, and heated, and 
supplied with water. The stage must be 
provided with an electric feed wire carrying 
110 volts, capable of being tapped and hav- 
ing either direct or indirect current. 

The price of admittance will have to be 
planned to co-ordinate with the seating ca- 
pacity. Usually Little Theatres are run on 
a subscription basis, unless as in the case 
of Erie, Pennsylvania, and the McCullom 
Theatre at Northampton, Massachusetts, ad- 
mission is free and the theatre is used solely 
for communal upbuilding. 

In organizing a Little Theatre there will 
have to be a director whose word on all ar- 
tistic matters is law. Besides this, a business 
manager, an art director, a musical director, 
and a group of play readers headed by a 
chief reader or Chairman of Play-reading 
Committee who confers with the director on 
the final choice of plays. There should be 
a theatre secretary who may also be the 



60 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

theatre press agent; and a theatre treasurer. 
Many Little Theatres have boards of direc- 
tors who put all matters connected with the 
theatre to a direct vote. 

No matter how the theatre is run, by a 
small or a large group, it must have a defi- 
nite policy to start out with, if it is to pros- 
per, and this policy must be agreed on in 
advance. 

In a Little Theatre new ideas are con- 
tinually cropping up. In time to come there 
will undoubtedly be performances by foreign 
citizens, who will give plays in their own 
tongue as well as translations of their na- 
tional plays acted in English before Ameri- 
can audiences. 

There will also be patriotic plays or plays 
interpretative of American life participated 
in by foreign citizens or given by Ameri- 
can citizens before audiences of the foreign- 
born. 

Also with many Little Theatres the time 
will undoubtedly come when a small dra- 
matic gallery or museum will be used in 



THE LITTLE INDEPENDENT THEATRE 61 

connection with the theatre. Here will be 
designs and costume plates and charts that 
will be of value to all the dramatic groups 
of the city, whether planning for plays or 
festivals or pageants. 



THE HISTORICAL PAGEANT 

THE United States Government believes 
so heartily in the pageant as a means 
of stirring national patriotism that it 
keeps a list of all available pageants on file 
at Washington. The historical pageant 
quickens the sense of nationalism as well 
as the art sense of the community. It pos- 
sesses a power for unification and co-ordina- 
tion of large groups of people that a play 
does not possess. It is a civilizer. It brings 
an appreciation of beauty into every part 
of the city. People who would not dream 
of participating in a play are readily drawn 
into a pageant because group work over- 
comes all self-consciousness. Pageantry 
reaches people whom a play could never 
reach. It is an arouser of patriotism, and 



THE HISTORICAL PAGEANT 63 

through arousing patriotism, makes for 
Americanism. 

So much has been written about pageants 
and they have been so much talked about in 
these days of dramatic and patriotic ferment 
that almost everyone has come to know that 
a pageant consists of a series of episodes 
which portray the history of a place, of a 
movement, or of an individual. That is, be- 
ginning with the birth of that place, or move- 
ment, or with the youth of a particular per- 
son, the pageant progresses in a series of 
episodes, each episode interrelated to the 
whole. It is actual human history given in 
the guise of drama. It covers the dry bones 
of fact with a mantle of glamour. It gives 
perspective and a sense of the continuity of 
human existence, its struggles, defeats, and 
hopes. It is the drama of numbers and big 
effects, epic in its scope and character. It 
employs spoken speech, pantomime, dancing, 
marching, and singing to convey its full ef- 
fect. 

The modern pageant as we know it today 



64 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

was originated by Louis N. Parker * in Eng- 
land, and then brought to this country where 
American pageant artists have adapted its 
pictorial effect and big brushwork to their 
own needs and the needs of the community. 
But the fact that Louis N. Parker wrought 
some of the most superb pageants in Eng- 
land, and can be called the originator of 
modern pageantry is in itself a significant 
fact; for it shows that this art, whose very 
essence is community service, was made pos- 
sible by a worker in the theatre. Not by a 
social propagandist, or a teacher with ad- 
vanced views of pedagogy; or by a writer of 
history or a pamphleteer; but by a worker 
in the art of the theatre — a man who has al- 
ways served the theatre to the best of his 
ability: a man, moreover, who is more 
closely identified with the historical play 
than any other dramatist of the present 
generation. 

The pageant was born of theatre knowl- 

* Louis N. Parker is known as the author of such historic 
plays as Drake, Disraeli, Pomander Walk, etc., etc 



THE HISTORICAL PAGEANT 65 

edge and aspiration. It is the theatre's gift 
to the community. 

America, as has been said, took the pageant 
from England and adapted it to her needs; 
yet with this difference. Whereas pageants 
in England were always on a large, magnifi- 
cent scale, pageants in America were, from 
the beginning, of two kinds: big and little. 
Great American cities have the vast type of 
pageant; but small towns, which had very 
little money, wanted pageants also. So the 
smaller type was devised. In England there 
was one type; America's democratic spirit 
demanded that there be two types. 

The beginnings of English history were 
intertwined with the glitter and pomp of 
Caesar's Rome. America, on the other hand, 
had homespun beginnings, sober in color and 
in spirit. This very plainness related the 
smaller pageant to the soil from which it 
sprang, and gave it a chance for inexpen- 
sive production in smaller cities. 

In England the pageant was a welder of 
the community. It brought everyone in the 



66 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

town together to work for the good of the 
whole. It stirred national and local patriot- 
ism, and wakened a deeper love of art. In 
America the pageant has done all this, and 
more. In many cases it outlasts its own 
production. That is, the seed sown by the 
pageant has continued to flourish after the 
pageant is over. In one city, the pageant 
chorus, organized for the pageant, continues 
its work as a separate entity. 

Out of a pageant in a Southern city 
sprang a notable Little Theatre. In an- 
other city it is the community chorus that 
thus survives: in still other cities the pageant 
dancing is continued through the establish- 
ment of playgrounds where festivals are 
given. And, perhaps the finest result of all, 
very beautiful permanent outdoor theatres 
have been established as the result of his- 
torical pageantry. This is one of pageantry's 
most salient and lasting benefits to the com- 
munity. There has come to be a feeling that 
a pageant that does not leave behind it some- 
thing which goes on growing in a commun- 



THE HISTORICAL PAGEANT 67 

ity is a pageant that has not truly suc- 
ceeded. 

This is the only way in which the pageant 
of local history can survive its production, 
the only way in which it can be made last- 
ing. For once it is over, it is over. It will 
seldom stand repeating. Only the memory 
of it, the patriotic thrill of it, will remain: 
scenes stamped forever on the pages of the 
mind: — an Indian Chief seated beside his dy- 
ing camp fire; youths leaving the plow to an- 
swer their country's call: slim girl dancers 
seen in silhouette against the waning light 
of afternoon. This pageant of local his- 
tory is in one way ephemeral. It lives but 
for the moment. Thus it can only be used 
in one small section of the country. It is 
not available or advisable for use in any other 
part of the country. 

Therefore there has come into being the 
pageant that deals with a movement or with 
the life of a famous individual : * a pageant 

* As examples of these types of pageants the following may 
be cited: The Susan B. Anthony Pageant, by Hazel Mackaye, 



68 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

that will be general, not local in its interest. 
This type of pageant is distinctly an Ameri- 
can creation. The demand for it exists all 
over the country, and has resulted in its 
being made available in book form. Such 
pageants may deal with Independence Day; 
with the growth of democracy; or with the 
lives of American heroes. Like the local 
pageant, this pageant having general in- 
terest, may be produced on a large scale: 
or on a more simple scale, according to the 
size of the town in which it is given. In 
keeping national heroes and their deeds be- 
fore Americans, and before the foreign-born 
who are to be Americans, these pageants 

produced for the Woman's Suffrage Party in Washington, D. 
C, was the first pageant in this country to deal with the life 
of an individual, beginning with the youth, and ending with 
the old age of its heroine. An example of a pageant with an 
idea applicable to all parts of the country is Thomas Wood 
Stevens' Pageant of Independence Day, published by The 
Stage Guild, 1527 Railway Exchange Building, Chicago, 111., 
at 50 cents net. This can be used in any part of the 
country, since its underlying theme is liberty. Still another 
pageant of this type, arranged for young people, and touching 
on the lives of Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin, is The 
Pageant of Patriots, in Patriotic Plays and Pageants, pub- 
lished by Henry Holt and Company, at $1.35. 



THE HISTORICAL PAGEANT 69 

are doing their share towards Americaniza- 
tion. 

That our foreign-born citizens can be given 
a vivid idea of our history and our national 
spirit through the use of the pageant goes 
without saying, since they themselves can 
take part both as participants and audience. 
And this is the time when their patriotic ob- 
ligations must be made clear to them: an 
opportunity for making them " one hundred 
per cent American." 

Over and over again in scenes dealing with 
emigration the immigrant has been shown 
bringing his gifts to America. But very 
little stress has been put on what America 
gives the immigrant. It is high time that 
this should be done. 

Drama, the spoken word, vision, " the 
thing done," can make this clear to the im- 
migrant. Foreign-born American citizens 
and their children must be made to feel that 
they are American citizens; that our heroes, 
Washington, Lincoln, Nathan Hale, Frank- 
lin, and Patrick Henry, are their heroes; that 



70 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

our history has become their history. The 
lives and deeds of Garibaldi, of Kossuth, and 
William Tell and Gustavus Adolphus will 
be more real to foreign-born American citi- 
zens than the deeds of our American heroes, 
until the time comes when we make the lives 
of our heroes equally real to them through 
actual representation. They must learn 
through participation the events of our his- 
tory. Foreign-born citizens and citizens not 
foreign-born should participate together. 

Always in our Fourth of July and kindred 
celebrations, our foreign-born American citi- 
zens appear in scenes from the history of the 
countries which they have left. Is it not 
time that they should appear in scenes from 
the history of the country to which they have 
come, and to which they have sworn their 
allegiance? Through play and pageant and 
festival this work can be accomplished: 
through play and pageant and festival the 
foreign-born citizens must learn what Ameri- 
canization really means. It will not be for 
nothing that they memorize the actual words 



THE HISTORICAL PAGEANT 71 

of our heroes. The actual scenes will make a 
deeper appeal than ever the printed page 
can make. 

And it may be well to remind even our 
American-born citizens that, in the words of 
Franklin, " Where Liberty dwells, there is 
my country," which was a favorite motto 
of Carl Schurz, a great American, though 
born in Germany. 

It has been claimed by some drama en- 
thusiasts that to have immigrants acting in 
scenes of our history rather than in scenes 
of their own history will rob both festival 
and pageant of the glowing color that their 
national dress, their picturesque folk cos- 
tumes bring to us. Thus, they will either 
have to appear in the drab nondescript garb 
of our present century, or in the costumes 
of American history — a history which covers 
a brief span — and which has but few cen- 
turies of costume to draw upon. But this 
need not be so. The rich variety of folk 
costume need not be lost. The color and 
beauty of folk costume can be used in Amer- 



72 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

ican scenes. It can be made a part of them; 
for there can always be scenes showing how 
the tides of immigration first came to Amer- 
ica, and here folk costume will blend with 
American historical costume in a wonderful 
way. 

Who were the first Norwegian immigrants 
to come to America? In what State and in 
what year did they settle? They can be 
shown as they first came to your State, or 
to other States, or to your town in all the 
quaintness of their peasant garb. Russians, 
Poles, Portuguese, peoples from the East 
of Europe — all can be shown as they first 
arrived, just as the Pilgrims can be shown, 
or the Dutch, or the French. Each stream 
of foreign life can be pictured at the exact 
moment when it first joined the main stream 
of American life. Thus the folk color will 
not only be conserved, but given a new con- 
trast and significance. 

Indeed, we may later evolve a very simple 
Greek type of festival with American sub- 
ject-matter. Here the audience will take 



THE HISTORICAL PAGEANT 73 

the part formerly assigned to the Greek 
chorus. They will corne in as a sort of re- 
sponse to what is taking place on the stage. 
They will learn their lines beforehand and 
respond chorus-like to the pageant players. 
Spontaneity will be assured by having audi- 
ence and players come together without re- 
hearsal so that the day of production will 
unite them for the first time. Stuart Walker, 
in one of his Portmanteau Theatre plays, 
gave a hint in this direction, showing how 
actors and audience could be united, when 
players seated in the audience formed part of 
the play. 

The pageant, like the play, has a very 
definite technique, and it is only when this 
technique is exceedingly skilful that we get 
the swiftly moving, poetic, colorful repre- 
sentation that a pageant is meant to be. Too 
much of the pageant work in this country has 
amateurish technique behind it. The whole 
pageant standard needs to be raised: needs 
to be infused with more of the high art of 
the theatre in order to lift and glorify it. 



74 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

Small pageants are undoubtedly useful, and 
can be made interesting through having a 
fine standard of production. But larger 
pageants, in order to hold an idea before 
the community saliently and unforgettably, 
must be in the hands of creative artists, or 
their purpose will fail. 



VI 



HOW TO ORGANIZE AN HISTORICAL 
PAGEANT 

TO be successful, any pageant, be it small 
or large, has the same general scheme 
of organization. And while the de- 
scription given here is for a large pageant 
to be given in a large city, a small pageant 
can be organized in the same manner. 

Where a pageant is given as a free civic 
celebration, involving no sale of tickets, there 
is less financial organizing to be done: in 
this case funds are appropriated for the 
pageant either by private or municipal sub- 
scription when the number of seats has noth- 
ing whatever to do with the pageant fund. 

Where the pageant fund and the intake 
from the box office must be considered, the 
seating capacity of the pageant grandstand 

75 



76 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

naturally has a direct bearing on the 
pageant fund and the price of admission 
must be in accordance with that fund. 

Plans for the production of a local, his- 
torical pageant must be laid at least a year 
ahead. A small general pageant needs only 
three or four months' planning. 

Next to the desire to give a pageant, the 
most important thing is the money to finance 
the pageant, and the next most important 
the securing of the pageant director. The 
organization of the pageant might be said 
to come in the following order. 

1. (a) Money to finance the pageant, 
(b) Newspaper publicity to that end. 

2. (a) Consideration of a site on which 

to give the pageant, 
(b) Engaging a pageant director and 
consulting with the pageant staff 
on the selection of pageant site. 

3. Renting the pageant office where all 

business is to be conducted. 

4. Renting a permanent pageant hall with 

tributary pageant halls for rehearsal. 



ORGANIZING AN HISTORICAL PAGEANT 77 

5. Enlisting the pageant players and as- 

signing parts. 

6. Costumes and properties. 

7. Outlining the musical program for the 

pageant. 

The project of having a pageant may be 
broached at some public meeting called for 
that purpose; at some public dinner; or the 
ball may be set rolling by the meeting of a 
group of individuals. 

Any of these meetings may be called by 
the Mayor of the city if he is interested; in 
any case the Mayor and his staff must be 
bidden to the primary meeting. 

City historical pageants have been started 
by the Drama League; by the Parks and 
Playgrounds; by Civic Leagues; by City 
Colleges or Art Associations; by Civic Bet- 
terment Associations; by Boards of Trade; 
by Local Historical Societies; by the city 
government officials; or by a group of pub- 
lic-spirited citizens with the city's best in- 
terest at heart. 

Newspapers in almost all cases lend hearty 



78 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

support to the pageant project provided 
that no favoritism is shown and that each 
paper gets, at the beginning, the same 
amount of information. 

Money is furnished through various 
sources. The city government; wealthy citi- 
zens and city organizations such as clubs, 
orders, lodges may contribute. The Board 
of Trade in any city is generally a large 
contributor. In some cases the whole 
pageant is financed through the efforts of 
the wealthiest and most art-loving citizens. 
Again it may be the city government that 
supplies all the funds. The pageant may 
be financed in several ways, according to 
the kind of pageant given. The pageant 
may be underwritten, and the money col- 
lected from the sale of seats returned to 
the underwriters. Or if the pageant is given 
free, the money may be utilized for the ex- 
penses of the pageant without return. In 
the first case the pageant expenses and the 
sale of seats must be correlated so that ex- 
penses will be covered. 



ORGANIZING AN HISTORICAL PAGEANT 79 

Nothing can go forward until the money- 
is raised. To attempt the pageant without 
money pledged in advance spells shipwreck 
for all concerned. 

The next step is to look over all available 
ground with an eye to the fact that from 
ten to forty thousand people will have to 
be seated. There must also be space for 
stage dressing rooms. And the vista back 
of the stage must, if possible, be good to 
look upon. Also the spot selected must be 
easy of access. The general arrangement 
and acoustics must be considered. Indeed, 
the pageant site plays more of a part in 
determining what the pageant is to be than 
most people realize. 

Xo pageant site can be fully decided upon 
until the director has seen it, so one of the 
first steps is to engage the pageant staff 
consisting of the pageant director who is 
also often the author of the pageant; a 
pageant stage manager, usually with two 
assistant managers; the director of the 
pageant dances with two assistants, one of 



80 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

whom may or may not be the pageant solo 
dancer. 

The musical director of the pageant must 
also be engaged so that the pageant or- 
chestra of symphony size, or even larger, 
can begin its work as early as possible. 
There must be an assistant musical director, 
and a group of accompanists for possible 
indoor rehearsals of the dances. Or per- 
haps a brass band may be used instead of 
an orchestra: it depends on the size of the 
pageant grounds. 

There must also be a press agent who 
attends to all printed matter concerned with 
the pageant and who works with the news- 
papers, supplying them with details. There 
must be a director of costumes and a ward- 
robe mistress; a master carpenter and two 
assistant stage carpenters, head electrician 
and assistants. All these work in connection 
with local committees who augment the 
pageant staff. None of the units of the 
pageant staff should be engaged without the 
full O.K. of the pageant author and direc- 



ORGANIZING AN HISTORICAL PAGEANT 81 

tor, who is the supreme dictator in all that 
concerns the artistic side of the pageant. 

The organization of the pageant com- 
mittees can be mapped out by the director, 
as soon as he has been consulted with. Prac- 
tical, active chairmen should be chosen for 
each committee. These committees and their 
chairmen include the Chairman of the Gen- 
eral Pageant Committee, the Pageant Treas- 
urer, the Pageant Secretary, Chairman of 
the Pageant Site Committee, Chairman of 
the Community Organization Committee, 
Chairman of the Cast Committee (who helps 
with the selecting of the casts, etc., etc.), 
Chairman of the Pageant Grounds, whose 
duties include looking after policing, light- 
ing, sanitation and general arrangement, 
Chairman of Seating Arrangement, Chair- 
man of Printing Committee (pageant post- 
ers, programs, books, etc.). 

A pageant office should be rented over 
which the pageant Secretary presides, with 
a staff of stenographers. This office answers 
and files all letters concerning the pageant; 



82 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

card catalogues the pageant participants; 
keeps on hand a small library of books and 
pamphlets on pageantry; is the general clear- 
ing house and bureau of information for the 
whole pageant. 

A large hall must be rented for the in- 
door pageant rehearsals, dances, etc., in a 
convenient part of town. Several smaller 
halls must also be rented so that several 
rehearsals can be kept going at one and 
the same time. 

All these halls must be supplied with 
pianos, chairs, tables, and must be well lit 
and ventilated. One of these halls must be 
the place where the costumes are made. 
Seamstresses, volunteer or paid or both, 
must be in readiness as well as machines, 
sewing tables and chairs, and all the para- 
phernalia for making such costumes as are 
not rented outright. 

The enlisting of the pageant players is 
done through the pageant office. If it be a 
local historical pageant the people taking 
part in it as a rule play the roles of their 



ORGANIZING AN HISTORICAL PAGEANT 83 

own ancestors; next to these, people of good 
appearance and with acting talent are chosen; 
dances are selected from all the dance groups 
of the city; the pageant chorus is made up 
of all city choirs and singing societies. 

Card catalogues are made of all these 
participants, their names and addresses and 
the episodes in which they appear; they are 
kept informed of rehearsal through a post- 
card system and through the bulletins printed 
in the daily papers. 

The pageant orchestra is made up of all 
the union orchestras in the city augmented 
by the union orchestras of nearby towns. 
Or if a brass band is used, it is augmented 
for the occasion. 

The city is now organized and under ex- 
pert leadership may proceed to its pageant. 

The less expensive smaller pageant can 
be given by having a somewhat smaller cast 
of participants and by having the pageant 
given in the open air in the day time or 
night time on a stage with only inexpensive 
lighting effects — in as far as lighting effects 



81 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

can be inexpensive. This pageant must be 
gone about exactly in the same way as a 
great city pageant: and a smaller sum of 
money raised in the same manner. The 
pageant staff is small, consisting of the 
pageant author and director and his or 
her assistant; a dance director with a local 
assistant; a musical director; two accom- 
panists, and a local director of costumes 
and properties who may be called the art 
director and who works under the super- 
vision of the pageant director. 

The pageant Secretary, with one assistant, 
can run the office work for this smaller 
pageant. There is of course a musical di- 
rector, press agent, stage carpenter, and 
stage electrician — all local men. The cos- 
tumes may be in charge of a local commit- 
tee. Many of them may be hired from a 
costumer. When they are made, the ma- 
terials may be ordered wholesale from the 
local shops. 

Exactly the same care must be exercised 
in all details of the smaller pageant, par- 



ORGANIZING AN HISTORICAL PAGEANT 85 

ticularly in the detail of selecting the pageant 
site, which must be just as perfect for a 
small pageant as for a large one. 

The forces which a small city gathers to 
itself may aid in keeping down the gen- 
eral cost. The foreign citizens will have 
national costumes which can be utilized in 
folk dances. Parks and Playgrounds chil- 
dren will also have folk costumes which can 
be used. The costumes of Playground fes- 
tivals such as " Winter Driving Out Spring " 
and the " Coming of the Spring Flowers/' 
can be utilized in some symbolic scene. 

Local schools and high schools will have 
their store of costumes to add. Often there 
are fairy costumes which can be used in sym- 
bolic scenes: and Puritan costumes, which 
can be utilized. The costumes of Red Men 
and Daughters of Pocahontas are another 
asset. So, too, are the costumes of the Camp- 
fire Girls and Girl Scouts. 

Civil War veterans already have their 
costumes. Daughters of Veterans are apt 
to have many a quaint poke bonnet and hoop 



86 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

skirt dress tucked away in the attics. Schools 
of classic dancing can add their quota of cos- 
tumes, usually along Greek lines. System 
and imagination will work wonders in this 
field. 

One of the easiest and most successful 
ways of organizing a city or town is to 
waken group pride and group responsibility 
by having organizations represent their own 
calling. Knights of Columbus can take part 
in the scenes of discovery. Foreign citi- 
zens in scenes of early settlement where such 
settlement has come about through the for- 
eign element, Scotch, Scandinavian, French- 
Canadian, or Italian. 

The Red Men and Daughters of Poca- 
hontas, with Campfire Girls and Boy Scouts, 
can take part in the Indian scenes. May- 
flower societies and Pioneer societies in the 
pioneer scenes. Colonial Sons, Colonial 
Daughters, Sons of the Revolution, and 
Daughters of the Revolution, as well as the 
members of local historical societies, can take 
part in the Colonial scenes. 



ORGANIZING AN HISTORICAL PAGEANT 87 

In ancient times in England when me- 
diaeval pageants were given on floats and 
drawn through the English towns, these 
pageants were organized in the following 
manner. The pageant participants belonged 
to different guilds of workers, and the parts 
they played were identical with their occu- 
pations. Thus the shipwrights, sailors, and 
fishmongers played the nautical scenes; 
shepherds and farmers played the pastoral 
scenes; the guild of merchants, dyers, and 
weavers played still other scenes. What held 
good in the days of great Queen Bess still 
holds good today. 

Thus the Board of Trade in any city 
can represent men trading with the Indians; 
Sons of 1812 and Daughters of 1812 will 
work up the 1812 scenes; the Society of Co- 
lonial Wars will also be called upon to act. 
For Civil War scenes there are the Veterans 
and Sons of Veterans; the Women's Relief 
Corps and Daughters of Veterans; if any 
allusion to the Spanish War is wished, there 
are Spanish War Veterans. And for scenes 



88 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

relating to the World War there will be 
hundreds of participants ready and wait- 
ing. 

If there is a Dame School episode then 
all school teachers and school children can 
take part in it, most appropriately. For 
scenes of the city's growth and commerce 
there are the labor unions. For quaint old 
" singing schools " there are the city choirs. 
For scenes of dramatic intensity, elocution 
schools and local dramatic societies can be 
drawn on. For scenes of immigration there 
are the foreign citizens. For battle scenes 
militia or regular troops can be used. For 
scenes in which marines are used, marines 
will be lent from warships. For " churchly " 
scenes a minister and his whole congregation 
can volunteer. 

Pictures relating to the pageant should 
be on view wherever possible. 

Essays on the pageant should form a part 
of the local school curriculum. Story-telling 
classes in the libraries should give a synop- 
sis of the pageant in condensed, simplified 



ORGANIZING AN HISTORICAL PAGEANT 89 

form so that the youngest in the audience 
can grasp its general meaning. 

To be truly and permanently successful 
the pageant must permeate the life of the 
city through and through. 

As to the pageant budget, pageant ex- 
perts have found that as every city and 
town in the United States has a different 
pageant problem, a general or approximate 
budget is an impossibility. Each city or 
town has to have its own special financial 
diagnosis made for it, after all its resources 
and lack of resources have been taken into 
consideration. For instance, such as (1) 
whether or not there is a grandstand al- 
ready built; (2) whether there are costumes 
already available which can be drawn upon. 
Of course the number of people taking part 
in the pageant and the size of the audience 
exert a great influence on the pageant budget 
also. And whether or not the pageant is a 
free civic celebration has its bearing on the 
case. Often for a free civic celebration 
the audience is seated on a hillside, and thus 



90 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

the expense of a grandstand is done away 
with. Then whether or not the pageant is 
given at night is an important feature, as 
the wiring of the grounds is expensive. 

The least expensive pageant is the pageant 
already published in book form. All local 
pageants have to be specially written for 
the occasion, and put into the hands of an 
artist who can wring the most effect from 
the historical material at hand. 

Very small simple pageants, already pre- 
pared in book form, can sometimes, under 
skilful direction, be given for a few hun- 
dreds of dollars. The local pageant is more 
expensive, costing thousands where the pre- 
pared pageant costs hundreds. And in this 
case it must be remembered that a well- 
managed pageant should not only pay for 
itself, but earn half as much again. This 
has been the case with every well-planned 
pageant in this country. 



VII 



THE OUTDOOR THEATRE AND YOUR 
TOWN 

OUTDOOR theatres in America are of 
four types. The Greek Theatre, like 
that of Berkeley, California, and the 
Lewisohn Stadium in New York; theatres 
that have a natural background like that of 
the huge open-air amphitheatre in Forest 
Park, St. Louis, or the Sylvan National 
Theatre at Washington — that is, a theatre 
with a grassy stage, flanked by trees, and with 
a lagoon in the foreground. And the rustic 
woodland theatre often found in small parks 
in American cities. Here the auditorium, 
usually on a hillside, has rustic benches and 
the stage is au naturel. The fourth type, 
less used than the others, is the formal 
Italian or as it is sometimes called the Ital- 

91 



92 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

ian Garden type of theatre with turf stage 
and formal clipped hedges and trees. 

By their type of architecture certain of 
these theatres preclude certain kinds of plays. 
Greek, Roman, and symbolic plays and 
pageants as well as such Shakespearean plays 
as Midsummer Night's Dream and some 
of the plays of Maeterlinck can be given 
in the Greek Theatre; but patriotic pageants 
and patriotic American plays cannot be so 
produced without a sense of anachronism. 
Indian plays or plays of pioneer life are 
absolutely impossible for this setting. 

In the Italian Garden type of theatre 
fantastic, XVIIIth century, intensely mod- 
ern, or mediaeval plays can be given, in- 
cluding such classics as some of Moliere's 
comedies and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, 
It is impossible to give symbolic, patriotic, 
or Greek plays in such a theatre without a 
sense of anachronism. 

Of course Indian or frontier plays or 
plays of Puritan life are impossible in this 
type of theatre. 



THE OUTDOOR THEATRE 93 

The rustic theatre lends itself to rustic 
and fairy tale plays; to plays of the XVIIIth 
century, to certain mediaeval plays such as 
Shakespeare's Winter's Tale and As You 
Like It. It is also possible for small his- 
torical pageants. But for Greek plays or 
for symbolic plays it does not make a par- 
ticularly good setting. However, it is much 
less narrow in its scope than the Greek 
Theatre or the Italian Garden Theatre. 

Of these outdoor theatres, the theatre 
with a simple background of trees, and a 
grassy stage, is the best because it lends it- 
self to every kind of pageant and play. 
With the use of pillars it can become Greek; 
or with the use of formal pergolas and 
clipped trees in pots it can be transformed 
into a garden theatre. Also it can easily be 
touched into rusticity. 

Again and again in small city parks where 
marble or wooden colonnades or pergolas 
have been built as rest houses or as a refuge 
for mothers and their children against the 
glare of the sun, the pillars will be placed 



94 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

so that it is absolutely impossible to use 
these colonnades as tiny outdoor theatres. 
And yet, with only a little planning in ad- 
vance, this could so easily be remedied. The 
colonnade could be raised a few steps, and 
the pillars grouped so that exits and en- 
trances would be possible, and presto! an 
adequate miniature theatre in the midst of 
a congested district. Here one-act plays 
could be given by the children of the neigh- 
borhood. 

Draped with flags these miniature park 
theatres could become centers of patriotism 
on all stirring national occasions: here it 
would be possible to repeat bits of what has 
been done in the larger outdoor theatres 
of the city. 

The porches and porticos of public build- 
ings have possibilities as small outdoor the- 
atres of which as yet almost no advantage 
has been taken. Properly lit, and with 
the downstairs windows effaced by proper 
screening, they offer possibilities for Fourth 
of July and Christmas celebrations. 



THE OUTDOOR THEATRE 95 

Since cities are not planned with outdoor 
theatres in mind, it is very hard to combine 
accessibility, beauty, and practicality. To 
be truly Americanizing and democratizing, 
to be truly a great meeting place for the 
people any city outdoor theatre should be 
reached by not more than one car fare. But 
when this difficulty is met others arise. Too 
many accessible outdoor theatres have great 
modern public buildings and sometimes even 
gas tanks visible in the distance. Planned 
for in advance such a theatre can have a vista 
of trees specially planted, and immense wire 
screens on which vines are run to a great 
height. This will sometimes help to screen 
an impossible background. 

A partial list of cities possessing outdoor 
community theatres may be of interest: 

In California — Bakersfield, Berkeley, Car- 
mel, Claremont, Monticito, Mount Tamal- 
pais, Ponta Loma, Redlands, Santa Cruz. 
In District of Columbia — Washington. In 
Illinois — Chicago. In Maine — Bethel and 
Blue Hill. In Massachusetts — Gloucester 



96 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

and Sterling. In Michigan — Detroit (Cran- 
brook) and Ludington. In Minnesota — 
Anoka. In Missouri — Columbia and St. 
Louis. In New Hampshire — Peterborough. 
In New York — Lake Placid, New York 
City, and Scarborough. In North Dakota — 
Grand Forks. In South Dakota — Yankton. 
In Virginia — Harrisburg. In Washington — 
Tacoma. 

This is not counting the great open-air 
stadiums of Yale and Harvard; nor the 
sylvan theatres of Wellesley, Vassar, and 
Mount Holyoke; nor the beautiful Greek 
Theatre of Pomona College, California. 

All outdoor theatres vary in cost, as the 
grounds of each one need different treat- 
ment, as well as tree planting, etc.* And 
the fees of architects vary greatly. Under 
normal conditions an outdoor stage of grass, 
banked by trees that may have to be 
trimmed, but that do not have to be planted; 

* See " Open Air Greek Theatre," page 249, in Costumes and 
Scenery for Amateurs, published by Henry Holt and Company, 
at $1.75. 



THE OUTDOOR THEATRE 97 

with ground that has a small amount of level- 
ing or landscaping ; and with a wooden grand- 
stand that seats five hundred people can be 
had for three thousand five hundred dollars. 
In this case the fee of the theatre specialist 
must be a small one. He must be one who 
does this particular piece of work half for 
the love of it, and for its civic significance. 
This sum includes all expenses for a small 
outdoor theatre.* (Larger outdoor theatres 
vary in proportion.) Of course this small 
sum does not include lighting the theatre, 
which can only be used for daylight per- 
formances until a lighting system is in- 
stalled. 

Moderate priced Greek pillars can be had 
from the Hartwell Sanders Co., 2155 Elston 
Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. A catalogue will 
be sent upon receipt of three cents in stamps. 

* It does not, of course, include the cost of the land. 



VIII 

SUGGESTIONS FOR PATRIOTIC CELEBRA- 
TIONS OF FOURTH OF JULY AND 
OTHER NATIONAL HOLIDAYS 

I. Dramatic Material Definitely Appli- 
cable to the Great War.* 
II. Dramatic Material for General Pa- 
triotic Holidays.* 
III. American Plays and Pageants* 

I. DRAMATIC MATERIAL DEFINITELY APPLI- 
CABLE TO THE GREAT WAR 

(For Adults) 

Pawns of the War. By Bosworth Crocker. 
Little, Brown and Co. $1.25. Somewhat 

* The books listed can be ordered through a local bookseller, 
or if a local bookseller is not available, they can be had from 
some large bookstore that makes a specialty of drama books, 
such as the Drama League Book Store, Riggs Building, Wash- 
ington, D. C, or the Drama League Book Store, 7 East Forty- 
second Street, New York City, or Brentano's, Fifth Avenue 
and Twenty-eighth Street, New York City, or A. C. McClurg 
& Co., Chicago, 111. 

98 



PATRIOTIC CELEBRATIONS 99 

elaborate play dealing with the great war. 
Cast of men and women. 

Rise Up, Jennie Smith. By Rachael L. 
Field. Drama League Prize Play. Pub- 
lished by Samuel French, 28 West Thirty- 
eighth Street, New York City. 25 cents. 
One-act play with a simple interior setting 
and the scene laid in America. Deals with 
the patriotism of a little wage-earner who 
makes a great sacrifice for the love of her 
country. Charming play. Could be given 
by a small cast of women or girls. 

The Drawing of the Sword. By Thomas 
Wood Stevens. A Red Cross Pageant. Can 
be obtained from the Drama League Book 
Shop, 7 East Forty-second Street, New 
York City. 50 cents. Beautiful patriotic 
pageant. Requires a cast of at least fifty, 
and should .have more. Men and women. 
A great chance for picturesque costumes. 

The Land Where the Lost Things Go. 
By Doris Halman. Drama League Prize 
Play. Published by Samuel French, New 
York City. 25 cents. This highly patriotic 



100 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

play requires a medium-size cast of men 
and women. The costumes and setting are 
simple. It is easy and effective to give. 

The Unseen Host and Other War Plays. 
By Percival Wilde. Little, Brown and Co. 
$1.25. These stirring one-act plays have 
been acted in many Little Theatres through- 
out the country. All the casts are small, 
and the settings simple. Some can be given 
by a cast of women. Others by a cast of 
men only. 

They the Crucified, and Comrades. By 
Florence Taber Holt. Houghton Mifflin. 
$1.00. These two one-act plays of France 
and Belgium have just appeared. They are 
stirring and practical, and should be widely 
acted. 

(For Young People) 

Girls Over Here. A one-act play for girls 
by Marie Doran. Published by Samuel 
French, New York. $1.25. Pleasing pa- 
triotic play with an all-girl cast. Can be 
very simply given. Is useful for schools. 



PATRIOTIC CELEBRATIONS 101 

Patriotic Pageants of Today, By Jose- 
phine Thorp and Rosamund Kimball. Con- 
tains four pageants of the World War, 
graphically written, picturesquely costumed, 
and easy to give. Each pageant has a defi- 
nite idea behind it. The cast in each pageant 
is of medium size, or can be made large, 
as desired. They can be given by casts 
composed of all girls, or of boys and girls. 
They can be given indoors or outdoors. 
They have already been widely acted. The 
pageants contained in the book are the 
following: The Torch, The Answer, When 
Liberty Calls, and The Call to the Youth 
of America. 

Patriotic Plays for Children. By Virginia 
Olcott. Dodd, Mead & Co. $1.00. Plays 
for little children. These brief plays deal 
with such subjects as Thrift, Red Cross 
Work, Food Saving, etc. They can be easily 
given by casts of all girls or by boys and 
girls. The settings are simple and adapted 
for schoolrooms. 

The Maid of Orleans. Play on the life of 



102 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

Jeanne D'Arc, by Augusta Stevenson. In 
Children's Classics in Dramatic Form. 
Houghton Mifflin. $1.00. Simple setting, 
easily managed. The play requires a rather 
large cast of young people. It could be 
made beautiful and effective. There are 
several acts; but the changes of scenery are 
not difficult. 

The Man Without a Country. A play 
for boys by Augusta Stevenson. In Chil- 
dren's Classics in Dramatic Form. Hough- 
ton Mifflin. $1.00 net. Excellent play. 
Very patriotic. Not difficult to give. Could 
be produced by large cast of boys. 

Festivals dealing with the World War 
in which the different countries of the Allies 
appear can readily be put together from 
material already published, both songs and 
poems. Descriptions of how such material 
can be put together are given on page 112 
of this chapter. The books in which such 
songs and poems and dialogues can be found 
are the following: 

American Patriotic Prose and Verse, pub- 



PATRIOTIC CELEBRATIONS 103 

lished by A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 111., 
selected and edited by Ruth Davis Stevens 
and David Harrison Stevens. This contains 
" Liberty Enlightening the World," by Ed- 
mund Clarence Stedman, page 155 in this 
volume. (This poem can be found in his 
Complete Poetical Works, published by 
Houghton Mifflin & Co. Also " The Flower 
of Liberty," by Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
page 154 of this volume. (Or in his Com- 
plete Works, published by Houghton Mifflin 
& Co. 

Very valuable for poetic interpretation of 
the World War is The Battle Line of Be- 
mocracy, published by the Committee on 
Public Information, 10 Jackson Place, 
Washington, D. C. 15 cents. Every Allied 
country in the World War is represented by 
a stirring poem. Belgium is represented by 
two poems, one of them " In Flanders 
Fields." On page 99 there is a fine poem 
on Jeanne D'Arc representing France. A 
Festival of the English-speaking Race could 
easily be devised along the lines suggested 



104 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

on page 112 of this present chapter by using 
the noble poems on America, England, Ire- 
land, Scotland, Canada, and India that appear 
in this excellent handbook. 

Also filled with patriotic material easily- 
convertible into patriotic festivals is America 
at War: A Handbook of Patriotic Educa- 
tion, published for the National Security 
League by George H. Doran, New York. 
$1.50. (The National Security League, 19 
West Forty-fourth Street, New York City.) 

A Book of Verse of the World War. Edi- 
ted by W. R. Wheeler. Yale University 
Press, New Haven, Conn. $2.00 net. Con- 
tains a wonderfully dramatic poem on Bel- 
gium, " The Refugees," by Hermann Hage- 
dorn. And a poem by Katherine Tynan, 
page 167, called " High Summer," that can- 
not fail to win a patriotic response. 

There is also Poems of the World War, 
by J. W. Cuncliffe, published by the Mac- 
millan Company, New York. $1.50 net. 

For ways of combining these patriotic 
songs and recitations so that they will make 



PATRIOTIC CELEBRATIONS 105 

festivals pertaining to the World War, see 
specimen celebration on page 117 of this 
present chapter. 

America, Belgium, France, England,* 
Italy, and the rest of the Allies wearing 
symbolic costumes, can each speak a poem 
taken from any of these sources. And in 
between the recitations of these poems the 
national airs of the Allied countries can be 
played, or the national songs sung.f 

Belgium, for instance, may be a tragic- 
looking figure in black, wearing a long 
transparent black veil over her face and 
hair. She may recite " The Refugees," by 
Hermann Hagedorn. Then the stage and 
auditorium may grow absolutely dark while 
a man's voice recites the poignant " In Flan- 
ders Fields." Then the stage may lighten, 
and Jeanne D'Arc, either in coat of mail or 
as a peasant maid, may appear to speak for 

* Where words are not needed " Rule Britannia " or 
Elgar's " Pomp and Circumstance " should be used for the 
entrance of Britain. 

f National Hymns of the Allies, published by G. Schirmer, 
New York, 50 cents net. 



106 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

France. Then the " Marseillaise " is played, 
and so on. This celebration may be given 
out of doors against a background of trees 
or indoors in a hall on a stage against sim- 
ply hung curtains, with the flags of the 
Allies draped in the center. Those direct- 
ing the celebration will find poems in 
magazines that will prove dramatically ap- 
plicable. 

II. DRAMATIC MATERIAL FOR GENERAL PA- 
TRIOTIC HOLIDAYS 

(Dramatic Material Available in Book Form) 
A Pageant of Independence Day. By 
Thomas Wood Stevens. Published by the 
Stage Guild, Railway Exchange Building, 
Chicago, 111. 50 cents. Outdoor pageant. 
Very patriotic. Adaptable to any part of 
the country. Requires a cast of men, women, 
and children. 

Nathan Hale. Play in four acts by Clyde 
Fitch. Published by Samuel French, New 
York. 50 cents net. Rather a large cast 
of men, women, and children. Colonial cos- 



PATRIOTIC CELEBRATIONS 107 

tumes. Simple sets. A thrillingly patriotic 
play. It must be emphasized in this play 
that the British are under the domination 
of a German king. 

Sam Average. One-act play from Yankee 
Fantasies of Percy Mackaye. Published by 
Duffield & Co. $1.25 net. Poetic play. 
Deeply imbued with patriotism. Easy set- 
ting and few characters. Men and women 
in cast. 

The First Lady in the Land. By Charles 
Nirdlinger. Published by Samuel French, 
New York. 50 cents. Patriotic play of the 
life and times of Dolly Madison. Medium- 
sized cast of men and women. Picturesque 
setting. Simple sets. 

(For Young People) 

Little Plays from American History. By 
Alice Johnson Walker. Published by Henry 
Holt and Company. $1.20. This book con- 
tains interesting, easily produced scenes from 
the life of Lincoln, scenes from early New 
England life, and a three-act play of the 



108 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

Revolution, in which Washington appears. 
Medium-sized cast of boys and girls. Has 
been widely acted. 

Lafayette, Columbus, and The Long 
Knives in Illinois. Three plays for young 
folks by Alice Johnson Walker. (Probable 
price, $1.40 net. Ready February, 1919. 
Henry Holt and Company.) Picturesque 
plays for medium-sized casts of boys and 
girls. They can be easily given. 

Patriotic Plays and Pageants. By Con- 
stance D'Arcy Mackay. Published by 
Holt and Company. $1.35. This book con- 
tains indoor and outdoor patriotic material 
dealing with American heroes such as Frank- 
lin, Lincoln, Washington; and such heroines 
as Pocahontas, Priscilla Mullins, etc. 

Independence Day, Memorial Day, and 
Flag Day. Edited by Robert Haven Schauf- 
fler in Our American Holiday Series, pub- 
lished by Moffat, Yard & Co. $1.00. In 
this series, in the book called Flag Day, 
there is a celebration, " Building of the Stars 
and Stripes," on page 209, that is splendid 



PATRIOTIC CELEBRATIONS 109 

for little boys and girls. Also for very little 
people is the Flag Play, on page 218 of the 
same volume. 

In Story and Play Readers, Vol. Ill, by 
Anna N. Lutkenhaus and Margaret Knox, 
published by The Century Company (60 
cents net), can be found Little Citizens Mak- 
ing a New America, adapted from The New 
Citizenship, by Percy Mackaye. Owing to 
the changes wrought by the World War 
there may have to be several excisions in 
this. 

III. AMERICAN PLAYS AND PAGEANTS 

All the plays of Augustus Thomas deal- 
ing with States, such as Arizona, Alabama, 
etc., are being published, with most inter- 
esting and illuminating prefaces, by Samuel 
French, New York, at 50 cents in paper 
covers. Secret Service and Held by the 
Enemy, Civil War plays by William Gil- 
lette, can be had from the same firm at 
the same price. They are full-length plays, 
the latter requiring special scenery. 



110 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

The Clod, by Lewis Beach, one of the 
Washington Square Players' successes, can 
be had in " Washington Square Plays " 
(Doubleday Page & Co., Garden City, N. Y., 
75 cents). This is a powerful one-act play 
of Civil War times with a small cast. The 
setting is a simple interior. 

The Scarecrow. By Percy Mackaye. 
Published by Macmillan. $1.25 net. New 
England fantasy of XVIIIth-century life. 
Interior settings. Colonial costumes. Med- 
ium-size cast of men and women. Requires 
fine acting, especially in the difficult part of 
the Scarecrow. 

Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, is a one-act 
play of farm life in the Middle West. 
Tragic and intense. Small cast of men and 
women. Simple interior setting. Has been 
widely played. Address Miss Susan Glas- 
pell, care The Provincetown Players, Mac- 
dougal Street, near Washington Square, 
New York. 

Polly of Vogue's Bun. Played at The In- 
dianapolis Little Theatre, Indianapolis, In- 



PATRIOTIC CELEBRATIONS 111 

diana. This is an historical patriotic comedy 
of Indiana in Civil War days. It requires 
a large cast of men and women; but the set- 
tings are not difficult. (Drama League 
Book Shop, 7 East 42nd Street, New York. 
35 cents.) 

Wisconsin Plays. Published by Heubsch. 
$1.25 net. Contains three American one- 
act plays by American authors. Small casts 
of men and women. Simple settings. The 
plays in the volume are Zona Gale's Neigh- 
bors; In Hospital, by Thomas Dickinson; and 
Glory of the Morning, by William Ellery 
Leonard. 

Yankee Fantasies. By Percy Mackaye. 
Published by Duffield. $1.25 net. One-act 
plays dealing with New England life. Small 
casts of men and women. Very easy to give. 
Well adapted to small stages. 

The Bird's Christmas Carol. By Kate 
Douglas Wiggin. Houghton Mifflin. $1.00. 
Play of American home life. Medium-sized 
cast of men, women, and children. Simple in- 
terior settings. Easy and delightful to give. 



112 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

Joint Owners in Spain. By Alice Brown. 
Address Miss Alice Brown, care of Hough- 
ton Mifflin, Boston, Mass. Whimsical one-act 
play with small cast composed entirely of 
women. Easy interior set. Has been very 
widely acted. 

Suggestions for a Patriotic Celebration 

Very simple yet effective celebrations for 
national holidays can be made through 
combining poetic recitation and chorus. 
Here and there, mainly through the work 
of Vachel Lindsay, we are catching 
glimpses of what might be done along these 
lines. 

With such a celebration use a city park 
with a lovely background vista or the colon- 
nade or Greek portico of any public build- 
ing that is led up to by a flight of steps. Or 
if a city park lacking a fine vista must 
be used, then make a solid background of 
trees and shrubs sent for the occasion from 
a florist. In these celebrations a flat back- 
ground is necessary in order that the partici- 



PATRIOTIC CELEBRATIONS US 

pants may stand out clearly. Do not be 
afraid of simplicity. 

Say that this background of green is 
twenty-five feet long. Let it have a middle 
entrance carefully screened with trees or 
shrubs. On each side of this middle en- 
trance place a Greek seat or a long white 
bench representing a marble bench. These 
seats must be devoid of ornamentation. 

If there is to be a chorus let the chorus 
sit at each end of this green background, in 
simple easy groups on the grass. (Or on 
the steps, if the celebration be staged in 
front of a public building.) Let them wear 
simple Greek costumes of white with per- 
haps a band of red, white, and blue crossed 
on the shoulders. The seats are used for 
those who recite. Whether a park or pub- 
lic building is used the green background is 
the same. 

It is perfectly easy to have figures sym- 
bolically robed enter one at a time from the 
center entrance, speak directly and clearly 
what they have to say, and then seat them- 



114 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

selves on the benches at right or left. In 
between these recitations the chorus may 
chant or sing if desired. 

Do not be afraid that such a celebration 
will be static. The color of the robes of 
the symbolic figures, purple and orchid, rich 
crimson, blue and gold and white, will hold 
the attention of an audience. Cheesecloth 
and canton flannel may be used for the 
materials, but the lines of the robe and the 
color scheme must be as nearly perfect as 
it is possible for them to have them. 

The symbolic figures may be America, 
Liberty, the Old World and the New World, 
Democracy, Tyranny, or any one of a dozen 
others. Any foreign country can be sym- 
bolized through a figure wearing a white 
Greek robe with a mantle in that country's 
color. And the flag of the country may be 
carried. On no account can national flags 
be used as robes or draperies. A flag is a 
sacred symbol. It can be carried, but it 
cannot be worn. 

Each symbolic figure can recite appro- 



PATRIOTIC CELEBRATIONS 115 

priate lines which must be brief in order to 
convey their full effect. In between these 
recitations the chorus sings lines that fit in 
with the general scheme. 

An idea of such a festival more fully 
worked out follows here: 

THE NEW PILGRIMS 

(a litany of liberty) 

(A Patriotic Celebration for Foreign-born 
and American Citizens) 

Note. — The following suggestions are given as a 
basis for an Americanization Festival, or cele- 
bration in which audience and players partici- 
pate. 

The stage is set as described on page 112. 
The chorus, in Greek robes, seated at right 
and left, begin the celebration by singing 
Arthur Farwell's " Hymn to Liberty." * 

"Arise, ye nations; man is free! 
Hail to Dawn-crowned Liberty ! " 

* This stirring Hymn to liberty, words and music by Arthur 
Farwell, is published by G. Schirmer, 3 East Forty-third 
Street, New York City, at 10 cents a copy. 



116 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

Enter from background Liberty sym- 
bolically costumed. She wears a white robe 
and a crown of silver stars. In one hand 
she carries a torch, in the other the Stars 
and Stripes. She stands at left, and re- 
cites " Liberty Enlightening the World," by 
Edmund Clarence Stedman. 

Liberty 

My name is Liberty! 
From out a mighty land 
I face the ancient sea, 
I lift to God my hand: 
By day in heaven's light 
A pillar of fire by night 
At ocean's gate I stand 
Nor bend the knee. 

ye whose broken spars 
Tell of the storms ye met, 
Enter! Fear not the bars 
Across your pathway set. 
Enter at Freedom's porch — 
For you I lift my torch, 
For you my coronet 
Is rayed with stars. 

But ye that hither draw 
To desecrate my fee, 



PATRIOTIC CELEBRATIONS 117 

Nor yet have held in awe 
The justice that makes free — 
Avaunt, ye darkling brood ! 
By right my house hath stood; 
My name is Liberty, 
My throne is Law. 



Audience 

O wonderful and bright, 
Immortal freedom, hail! 
Front, in thy fiery might, 
The midnight and the gale; 
Undaunted on this base 
Guard well thy dwelling place. 
Till the last sun will pale 
Let there be Light! 

Enter a group of Pilgrims from back- 
ground. They pause by Liberty, and com- 
ing down from the stage take up positions 
in the front row of the audience. The audi- 
ence sings " America the Beautiful " by 
Katharine Lee Bates : * Enter America. 



* Words and music can be had from Cressy & Allen, 534 
Congress Street, Portland, Me, 5 cents a copy, or $3.00 a 
hundred. 



118 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN ' 

O beautiful for spacious skies, 
For amber waves of grain, 
For purple mountain majesties 
Above the fruited plain! 
America ! America ! 
God shed His grace on thee 
And crown thy good with brotherhood 
From sea to shining seat 

O beautiful for pilgrim feet, 
Whose stern, impassioned stress 
A thoroughfare for freedom beat 
Across the wilderness! 

America ! America ! 
God mend thine every flaw, 
Confirm thy soul in self-control, 
Thy liberty in law. 

O beautiful for heroes proved 

In liberating strife, 

Who more than self their country loved, 

And mercy more than life! 

America ! America ! 
May God thy gold refine 
Till all success be nobleness 
And every gain divine! 

beautiful for patriot dream 
That sees beyond the years 



PATRIOTIC CELEBRATIONS 119 

Thine alabaster cities gleam 
Undimmed by human tears! 

America! America! 
God shed His grace on thee 
And crown thy good with brotherhood 
From sea to shining sea! 

Enter from background the New Pilgrims 
wearing their native immigrant costumes. 
Each New Pilgrim carries the flag of his 
or her country. They place these flags at 
the feet of America and each receives 
from her in return an American flag, 
which they unfurl and carry down with 
them to the first rows of the audi- 
ence. 

Liberty then crosses, and gives to America 
the large flag which she (Liberty) has been 
holding. Then Liberty returns to her place, 
at left. 

All the people in the audience carry small 
American flags. 

America raises her flag; all the people in 
the audience, as if in reply, raise their flags 
also. 



120 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

The chorus repeats the chorus of " America 
the Beautiful": 

" America ! America ! 
God shed His grace on thee 
And crown thy good with brotherhood 
From shining sea to sea." 

A soldier and sailor in modern uniform 
enter and stand at right and left of America. 

Liberty 
They love her best who to themselves are true,* 
And what they dare to dream of dare to do; 
They followed her and found her 
With danger's sweetness round her; 
They saw her, plumed and mailed, 
With stern, sweet face unveiled. 

Many in sad faith sought for her, 
Many with crossed hands sighed for her, 
But these our brothers fought for her, 
At life's dear peril wrought for her, 
So loved her that they died for her. 

Foreign-born Citizens (in the audience) 

We sit here in the promised land 
That flows with freedom's honey and milk, 
But 'twas they won it, sword in hand, 
Making the nettle danger for us soft as silk. 
* From Lowell's " Ode." 



PATRIOTIC CELEBRATIONS 121 

American and Foreign-born Citizens (in audience) 

Oh, beautiful! my country! ours once more 
Smoothing thy gold of war-disheveled hair 
O'er such sweet brows as never other wore. 
Amongst the nations bright beyond compare! 

What are our lives without thee? 
What are our lives to save thee? 
We wreck not what we gave thee, 
We will not dare to doubt thee, 
But ask whatever else and we will dare! 

America 

" This flag which we honor and under which we 
serve is the emblem of our unity, our power, our 
thought and purpose in the nation. It has no other 
character than that which we give it from genera- 
tion to generation." 

Audience 

" I pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic 
for which it stands — one nation, indivisible, with 
liberty and justice for all." 

Liberty 

" Love your country — it is your name, your 
glory, your sign among the peoples." 



122 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 
Audience 
" Where Liberty dwells, there is my country." 

The Foreign-born 

" Flag of our nation, guardian of our homes, 
whose stars and stripes stand for bravery, purity, 
truth, and union, we salute thee. 

We, the natives of distant lands who find rest 
under thy folds, do pledge our hearts, our lives,- 
our sacred honor, to love and protect thee, our 
Country, and the liberty of the American people 
forever." 

Players and audience join in singing the 
National Anthem. 

The orchestra plays John Philip Sousa's 
" The Stars and Stripes Forever " as the 
crowd disperses. 




IX 



SUGGESTIONS FOR CHRISTMAS COMMUN- 
ITY CELEBRATIONS AROUND THE 
TREE OF LIGHT 

ALL the celebrations given here are de- 
signed for outdoor production round 
the Community Christmas Tree. But 
it will be perfectly possible to transfer them 
indoors to a hall, and have the Christmas 
Tree on the stage of the hall, with the carol 
singers marching up the aisles of the hall, 
and from thence up a flight of steps to the 
stage. 

For other Patriotic and American cele- 
brations, see pages 112-116 of this 
volume. 

The Star in the East 

(A Christmas Community Celebration for For- 
eign-born and American Citizens, to be given in a 
city park around the Tree of Light.) 

123 



124. PARIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

For this celebration the Tree of Light will 
have to be raised some six feet higher than it 
ordinarily is by means of iron stanchions. 
About the tree in a circle should run four 
wooden tiers or steps very firmly built and 
painted dark pine-green. 

If possible, the electric lighting of the Tree 
should be arranged so that it can be turned 
off and on. At the top of the Tree should 
be a great star of electric light. 

Four pathways leading from the Tree 
should be roped off, — North, South, East, 
West, — so that the Christmas crowd cannot 
break into them. These pathways should be 
well lit by electric light. The rest of the 
ground surrounding the Tree should be in 
semi-darkness, so that all the light is focused 
on the Tree and the pathways. 

Before the celebration begins the lights 
on the Tree are turned out. Christmas carol 
singers scattered about through the audience 
sing " The Christ Child's Christmas Tree "; * 

* By Arthur Farwell, words by Jean Dwight Franklin, pub- 
lished by G. Schirmer, 3 East Forty-third Street, New York, 
at 10 cents a copy. 



CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 125 

Come, gather. Rich and poor are one, 
Parent and child, and the strange lone, 
For the heart of the City goes out tonight 
In a burst of music, a flood of light; 
And the Christ-Child spirit, divinely fair, 
That illumined the manger cold and bare 
Is born again in the City square! 

Next the carol singers give " Oh, Little 
Town of Bethlehem," by Phillips Brooks. 

Then the great star at the top of the Tree 
is lit, the rest of the Tree being dark. 

From the West, one group in white and 
one group in pale blue and gold and crim- 
son — like the colors of stained glass win- 
dows — come the Christmas angels. The little 
angels all in white with gold disk halos walk 
first. They carry garlands of Christmas 
roses. Next to them in costumes copied after 
Botticelli come the taller angels carrying 
long silver candlesticks bound with Christmas 
roses. They sing " Angels from the Realms 
of Glory," * by Frederick Bullard. 

The angels take their places on the top 

•Published by Charles Ditson & Co., New York. Price 12 
cents. 



126 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

of the tier of steps around the Christmas 
Tree. Their costumes are worn over warmer 
clothes. These costumes can be made of 
canton flannel and of silesia with gilded bur- 
laps for cloth of gold. They must hang well, 
and the colors must be tried out by electric 
light before they are used. Special care 
should be given to the footgear, which should 
consist of heavy white stockings worn over 
everyday shoes. Wings should not be used 
unless they are managed in a very skilful 
manner. Care should be taken to have these 
groups well spaced and not " set." They 
must not walk two and two. 

From the North come the shepherds sing- 
ing " While Shepherds Watched Their 
Flocks by Night," by Gerrit Smith* They 
wear brown tunics, with sheepskins over them 
in some cases. Long brown stockings; dark- 
brown sandals, laced to the knee with leather 
straps. These straps may be of brown bur- 
lap or oilcloth. The tunics may be made 

* Published by G. Schirmer, 3 East Forty-third Street, New 
York, Price 12 cents. 



CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 127 

of canton flannel or burlap. There should 
be sheepskin caps and each shepherd should 
carry a staff or crook. One of the shepherds 
carries a lamb in his arms. Their hair falls 
loose about their ears. Still singing they 
group themselves about the Tree on the step 
next to the angels. 

From the East come the Three Kings in 
brilliant, gorgeous costumes of the East, 
bearing gold and frankincense and myrrh. 
Their progress must be stately, and they 
should approach single file with plenty of 
space between them. The carol singers sing 
the " Three Kings," by Longfellow, set to 
music by Gerrit Smith,* or Horatio Parker's 
" Come, Gentles, Rise," t also dealing with 
the Three Kings. 

Next from the North come the children of 
Bethlehem in quaint Syrian costumes sugges- 
tive of Tissot's Life of Christ. They take 
their places on the last step, singing " The 
Guiding Star," by Frederic Field Bullard. 

* Published by G. Schirmer, 3 East Forty-third Street, New 
York. Price 12 cents. 

t Published by G. Schirmer, New York. Price 5 cents. 



128 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

Then all the groups in costume surrounding 
the Tree sing " Christians, Sing Out with 
Exultation," by Will MacFarlane * 

The lights come up, dazzlingly, and the cos- 
tumed group sings " Love of All the Ages," 
by Frederic Field Bullard.f 

Then the costumed groups about the Tree 
and the carol singers in the audience sing to- 
gether, " Carol, Carol, Christians," by Edith 
R. Noyes, or " Everywhere Christmas, 
Christmas Tonight," by Phillips Brooks.J 

Then the lights die out, only the great star 
remaining, and the celebration is over. 

An Allied Christmas 

Note. — An Allied Christmas can be given 
by having the National Hymns of the Allies 
sung about the Community Christmas Tree. 
The leader of each carol-singing group 
should carry one of the national flags of the 

* Published by Charles Ditson Co., New York. Price 15 

cents. 

f Published by Charles Ditson Co., New York, at 10 cents. 
$ Published by Charles Ditson Co., New York, at 10 cents. 



CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 129 

Allies — English, French, Italian, Belgian, 
etc. 

The members of each group should, if 
practicable, wear the characteristic costumes 
of the nation they represent; possibly, if the 
idea does not jar too much with that of 
Christmas, each group might contain men 
in the uniforms of soldiers of each nation. 

The National Hymns of the Allies can be 
had from G. Schirmer, music publisher, New 
York City, for 50 cents net. 

A Young People's Community Cheistmas 

A bugle blows three times, and under the 
Community Christmas Tree, which is already 
lit, Uncle Sam appears, wearing his tra- 
ditional costume, and over it a long blue 
cloak. He should not be a comic figure, 
but a genial figure who can on occasion be 
grave. 

Again the bugle sounds three times, and 
St. Nicholas appears, and is greeted by 
Uncle Sam. St. Nicholas wears the tradi- 
tional mediaeval costume, long scarlet pointed- 



130 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

sleeve tunic to his ankles, scarlet pointed 
shoes, a golden miter on his white hair. He 
carries a golden crozier in his hand. 

With this staff he touches a bell that is 
hung on the Christmas Tree and in answer 
to its summons the figures in the Christmas 
pageant begin to appear. A way must be 
kept clear for them, so they can circle about 
the Tree, and so they can make varied en- 
trances. All those taking part in the Christ- 
mas celebration wear costumes made of 
silesia or canton flannel or like material 
worn over their everyday clothes in case the 
weather is cold. In milder climates this will 
not be necessary. For this reason care 
should be taken with the lines of the cos- 
tumes so that they will not appear bunched 
or bundlelike. 

First comes the Christmas Tree Fairy, as 
beautiful as possible, in white, with silver 
tinsel, and shimmering wings and carrying 
a wand. 

At her summons the Frost Fairies enter, 
clad in white and silver, both little boys and 



CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 131 

little girls. They make obeisance to St. 
Nicholas, and sing " Jolly Old St. Nicholas," 
which can be found in any school singing 
book or school reader. 

Next, in answer to summons, a stately pro- 
cession appears, The Mistletoe Maidens, 
wearing white Greek robes, with pastel-green 
cloaks the color of mistletoe leaves. They 
carry tall white wands. They sing the 
first verse of " In the Bleak Midwinter," 
by Lucina Jewell, repeating it twice. (No. 
13,055, Six Christmas Carols, Eighth Series. 
Charles H. Ditson Co., New York City. 
Price 5 cents.) 

Again the Christmas Tree Fairy summons 
the next group, and the Evergreen Elves 
appear, little boys in dark green elfin suits, 
with tall peaked caps, carrying ropes of ever- 
green. They sing Phillips Brooks' " Every- 
where Christmas, Christmas Tonight," the 
first verse only. 

The Fairy summons the next group, the 
Snow Flakes, all in white. They are led by 
a grotesque Snow Man, with jolly antics. 



132 PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

They sing " Hark to the Merry Christmas 
Bells!"* all the verses, but not the chorus. 

Last of all the Fairy summons the Holly 
Berries, children in gay scarlet suits, with 
scarlet caps wreathed with holly leaves. They 
sing the first verse and chorus of "Merry 
Christmas." t 

All the costumed singers then stand 
grouped about the Tree, and everyone sings 
" The Star-Spangled Banner." \ If possible, 
the white electric lights that light the Tree 
should at this point be reinforced by blue 
and red electric lights. 

With the singing of " The Star-Spangled 
Banner " the festival ends. 

For other celebrations interesting material 
may be found in the following, all of which 
is by American writers or composers: 

* This carol is in No. 13,213, Six Christmas Carols, Ninth 
Series. Charles H. Ditson Co., New York. Price 5 cents. 

f No. 12,842 in Six Christmas Carols, Seventh Series. Charles 
H. Ditson Co., New York. Price 5 cents. 

$ " America " is not used here because its antecedents are 
the German " Heil Dir Im Siegerkranz " and the English " God 
Save the King," so it is better to use the "Star Spangled 
Banner" or "Hail Columbia" when referring to America in 
festivals and plays. 



CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 133 

Tryste Noel. By Frederic Field Bullard. 
Published by Charles H. Ditson Co., New 
York. Price 12 cents. 

Six Christmas Carols (Third Series). By 
Arthur Foote. Charles H. Ditson Co., New 
York. (No. 11,982.) Price 5 cents. 

It Came upon the Midnight Clear. By 
Horatio W. Parker. Charles H. Ditson Co., 
New York. Price 20 cents. 

Christmas Songs and Carols. By Kate 
Douglas Wiggin. Charles H. Ditson Co., 
New York. Price 10 cents. 

Night of the Star. A Cycle. By Mar- 
garet Ruthven Lang. Charles H. Ditson 
Co., New York. Price 40 cents. 

OTHER AMERICAN DRAMATIC MATERIAL FOR 
OUTDOOR CELEBRATIONS 

The Evergreen Tree. A Christmas Com- 
munity Masque by Percy Mackaye. Music 
by Arthur Farwell. Published by Apple- 
ton & Co., New York. $2.00 net. Can be 
given either in a long or a short version. 

The Seven Gifts. By ' Stuart Walker. 



1U PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

Given out of doors in Madison Square, New 
York, in connection with the Tree of Light 
celebration. Can be found in McCalVs Maga- 
zine for Christmas, 1915, or can be had by- 
addressing Stuart Walker, Portmanteau 
Theatre Office, Carnegie Hall, New York. 

The Pageant of Months. By Longfellow. 
Found in any complete selection of his works. 
Can be acted out of doors at the Christmas 
Tree. 

The Gift of Time. A Christmas Masque, 
from The Forest Princess and Other 
Masques. By Constance D'Arcy Mackay. 
Published by Henry Holt and Company. 
$1.35 net. Is also adaptable for indoor use 
at Christmas. 

FOR INDOOR USE 

The material given above may be adapted 
for indoor use. Also practical for indoor 
use is A Christmas Masque, by Constance 
D'Arcy Mackay, from The Forest Princess 
and Other Masques. Published by Henry 
Holt and Company. $1.35 net. 



CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS 135 

For Young People 

Christmas Candles. A book of Christmas 
Plays, by Elsie Hobart Carter. Henry Holt 
and Company. $1.50 net. 

Christmas Eve with Charles Dickens, from 
Little Plays About Famous Authors, by 
Maude Morrison Franck. Henry Holt and 
Company. $1.00 net. 

The Christmas Guest and On Christmas 
Eve, from The House of the Heart, by Con- 
stance D'Arcy Mackay. Henry Holt and 
Company. $1.20 net. 



BY CONSTANCE D'ARCY MACKAY 

THE LITTLE THEATRE IN THE UNITED STATES 

Illustrated. With index. Large nmo. $2.00 net. 
COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR AMATEURS 

With numerous illustrations and index. Large i2mo. $1.75 
net. 

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN'S PLAYS 

i2mo. $1.30 net. 

PLAYS 

THE BEAU OF BATH and Other One- Act Plays 

The Silver Lining, Ashes of Roses, Gretna Green, Counsel 
Retained, The Prince of Court Painters. Plays for amateurs 
and for Little Theatres. With illustrations after Reynolds, 
Humphrey and Romney. i2mo. $1.30 net. 

THE FOREST PRINCESS and Other Masque* 

The Gift of Time (a Christmas Masque), A Masque of Con- 
servation, The Masque of Pomona, A Christmas Masque, The 
Sun Goddess, A Masque of Old Japan, The Revival of the 
Masque, supplemented by papers on Costumes for Masques and 
Music for Masques. i2mo. $1.35 net. 

PATRIOTIC PLAYS AND OTHER PAGEANTS 

The Pageant of Patriotism and The Hawthorne Pageant. 
Both are given in versions for outdoor and for indoor per- 
formance, and arranged so that they can be split up into short 
plays. i2mo. $1.35 net. 

THE HOUSE OF THE HEART 

Short plays in verse for children of fourteen or younger: — 
The House of the Heart (Morality Play), The Enchanted Gar- 
den (Flower Play),^ Little Pilgrim's Progress (Morality Play), 
A Pageant of Hours (to be given out of doors), On Christmas 
Eve, The Princess and the Pixies, The Christmas Guest 
(Miracle Play), etc. i6mo. $1.20 net. 

THE SILVER THREAD and Other Folk Plays 

The Silver Thread (Cornish), The Forest Spring (Italian), 
The Foam Maiden (Celtic), Troll Magic (Norwegian), The 
Three Wishes (French), A Brevjing of Brains (English), 
Siegfried (German), The Snoiu Witch (Russian). i6mo. $1.20 
net. 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



TWO BOOKS BY CONSTANCE D'ARCY MACKAY 



COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR AMATEURS 

A Practical Working Handbook with over 70 illustrations and 
full index. 258 pp. i2rao. $1.75 net 

A book that has long been needed. It concludes chap- 
ters on Amateurs and the New Stage Art, Costumes, and 
Scenery, but consists mainly of simple outline designs for 
costumes for historical plays, particularly American 
Pageants, folk, fairy, and romantic plays — also of scenes, 
including interiors, exteriors, and a scheme for a Greek 
Theatre, all drawn to scale. Throughout the book color 
schemes, economy, and simplicity are kept constantly in 
view, and ingenious ways are given to adapt the same 
costumes or scenes to several different uses. 

HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN'S PLAYS 

The author is a recognized authority on the production 
of plays and pageants in the public schools, and combines 
enthusiastic sympathy with sound, practical instructions. 
She tells both how to inspire and care for the young actor, 
how to make costumes, properties, scenery, where to find 
designs for them, what music to use, etc., etc. She pre- 
faces it all with an interesting historical sketch of the 
plays-for-children movement, includes elaborate detailed 
analyses of performances of Browning's Pied Piper and 
Rosetti's Pageant of the Months, and concludes with 
numerous valuable analytical lists of plays for various 
grades and occasions. #1.30 net. 

New York Times Review: "It will be useful . . . practical 
advice." 

Magazine of General Federation of Women's Clubs: "There 
seems to be nothing she has forgotten to mention. Every club 
program chairman should have it." 



HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



NOTEWORTHY DRAMA BOOKS 

Clayton Hamilton's PROBLEMS OF THE PLAYWRIGHT 

This is probably even more interesting than the author's 
popular Theory of the Theatre or than his Studies in Stagecraft 
and is somewhat longer and more varied than either of tts 
predecessors. It represents the best of his work for several 
recent years. $i.6onet. 

Constance d'Arcy Mackay's THE LITTLE THEATRE IN THE 
UNITED STATES 

An intensely interesting book on the most promisingdevelop- 
ment in The American Theatre, by a high authority. She tells 
of nearly sixty of these little theatres, including something of 
their repertory, and has interesting supplementary discussions 
of The New Theatre, The Northampton Municipal Theatre, 
Repertory, etc. With illustrations of buildings, scenery, etc., 
and full index. Uniform with the author's "Costumes and 
Scenery for Amateurs." $2.00 net. 

Arthur E. Krows's PLAY PRODUCTION IN AMERICA 

With numerous and unusual illustrations and full index. 
$2.25 net. 

Dramatic Mirror: "Any would-be playwright or actor 
should not proceed until he has read and 'carefully digested' 
this book. There is not a detail in the realm of writing a 
play or in the art of acting that is not made plain and valuable 
. . . full of vital information. 
Richard Burton's BERNARD SHAW: The Man and the Mask 

By the author of "How to See a Play," etc. With Index. 
$1.60 net. 

Archibald Henderson, author of the standard biography of 
Shaw, calls Dr. Burton's book— "The best introduction to 
Bernard Shaw in print. No other book gives an analysis and 
study of each play . . . genius of simplicity of expression 
and effectiveness in interpretation." 

Fanny Cannon's WRITING AND SELLING A PLAY 

Probably the most common-sense and practical book on its 
subject, which the author knows from the inside as actress, 
manageress, playwright, and "play-doctor." She warns the 
writer of the many "breaks" that cause rejection, gives de- 
tailed constructive advice, tells him how to look out for his 
rights, includes a model contract, two detailed scenarios, and a 
bibliography of reference books and plays. i2mo. With full 
index. $1.50 net. 

Hartford Courant: "... this rare book . . . the author has the 
lessons she would convey at tongue's end and in orderly brain arrange- 
ment. . . . She teaches so lucidly and with person fascination. ..." 

E^PThe Publishers will send free on application their Descrip- 
tive Leaflet of Drama Books. 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



Josephine Thorp and Rosamond Kimball's 

PATRIOTIC PAGEANTS OF TODAY 

By Miss Thorp: The Answer, A Patriotic Festival. When 
Liberty Calls, A Pageant of The Allies. The Torch, A 
Pageant of Democracy. 

By Miss Kimball: The Call of the Youth of America, A 
Patriotic Exercise for Boys and Girls of all ages. 

These pageants have had repeated and successful perform- 
ance. Full directions for their simple staging, costuming and 
music are given. 12mo. $1.00 net. 
Constance D'Arcy Mackay's 

PATRIOTIC DRAMA IN YOUR TOWN 

By the author of "The Little Theatre in The United States," 
"Costumes and Scenery for Amateurs," etc. 16mo. $1.35 net 
(October, 1918.) 

Miss Mackay sketches the main essentials with which any 
fair-sized town may have pageants, A Little Theatre, or an 
Outdoor Theatre. She also gives detailed suggestions for com- 
munity Fourth of July and Christmas Celebrations, and shows 
how such celebrations bring a community into closer relation 
and make better Americans. 
Alice Johnston Walker's 

LAFAYETTE, COLUMBUS and THE LONG KNIVES 
IN ILLINOIS. Plays for Young Folk. 

By the author of "Little Plays from American History. 16mo. 
Probable price, $1.50 net. (February, 1919.) 

These plays take from an hour to an hour and a half, and 
have been tested by performance. Each contains a number of 
very picturesque, tho easily made settings. # George Rogers 
Clark the frontiersman is the leading character in the last. 
Louis Calvert's ^ PROBLEMS OF THE ACTOR 

With Introduction by Clayton Hamilton and index. $1.60 net. 

Mr. Hamilton says this books shows "the great love for a 
great thing that has been felt by a great man," and Mr. John 
Corbin in The Times calls it, "The best book on acting in 
English . . . teems with happy ancedotes." 
Romain Rolland's 

THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY AND DANTON 

Plays of the French Revolution for a People's Theatre. 
Authorized edition translated by Barrett H. Clark. 12mo. 
$1.50 net. (August, 1918.) 
Romain Rolland's THE PEOPLE'S THEATRE 

Authorized edition translated by Barrett H. Clark. 12mo. 
Probable price, $1.35 net. (In Press.) 

The author here touches on many vital aspects of such a play- 
house of which Americans have but very recently become 
conscious. While not hesitating to shatter idols, he has a 
constructive program too, and ends up "Everything remains 
to be done." 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
19 West 44th Street (viii '18) New York 



By GEORGE MIDDLETON 

Co-author of ' ' Polly with a Past 

THE ROAD TOGETHER 

An American Drama in Four Acts. $1.20 net. 

New York Sun: " Of all American dramatists, acted and unacted, few 
have a better right to serious consideration than George Middleton 
. . . four acts of cleverly contrived situations, adroit dialogue and 
cumulative interest . . . worked out with a clear purpose and a fine 
sense of dramatic values. . . ." 

POSSESSION 

With The Groove, The Black Tie, A Good Woman, Circles 
and The Unborn. One-act American Plays. $1.35. 

New York Times: ** Brief, tense, filled with an understanding sym- 
pathy for woman ... a striking presentation of the stuff that life 
is made of." 

EMBERS 

With The Failures, The Gargoyle, In His House, Ma- 
donna and The Man Masterful. One-act American 
Plays. $1.35. 

Prof. William Lyon Phelps of Yale: "The plays are admirable; 
the conversations have the true style of human speech, and show first- 
rate economy of words, every syllable advancing the plot. The little 
dramas are full of cerebration, and I shall recommend them in my 
public lectures." 

TRADITI ON 

With^ On Bail, Mothers, Waiting, Their Wife and The 
Cheat of Pity. One-act American Plays. $1.35. 

New York Times: " Mr. Middleton's plays furnish interesting read- 
ing. . . . The author deserves praise for his skill and workmanship 
; . . succeeds admirably as a chronicler of striking events and as an 
interpreter of exceptional people in exceptional circumstances." 

NOWADAYS 

A three-act comedy of American Life. $1.20. 

The Nation: " Without a shock or a thrill in it, but steadily interest- 
ing and entirely human. All the characters are depicted with fidelity 
and consistency; the dialogue is good and the plot logical." 



HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



SHORT PLAYS ABOUT FAMOUS AUTHORS 

(Goldsmith, Dickens, Heine, Fannie Burney, Shakespeare) 

By Maude Morrison Frank. #1.35 net. 

The Mistake at the Manor shows the fifteen-year-old 
Goldsmith in the midst of the humorous incident in his life which 
later formed the basis of "She Stoops to Conquer." 

A Christmas Eve With Charles Dickens reveals the author 
as a poor factory boy in a lodging-house, dreaming of an old- 
time family Christmas. 

When Heine was Twenty-one dramatizes the early disobe- 
dience of the author in writing poetry against his uncle's orders. 

Miss Burney at Court deals with an interesting incident in 
the life of the author of "Evelina" when she was at the Court 
of George III. 

The Fairies' Plea, which is an adaptation of Thomas Hood's 
poem, shows Shakespeare intervening to save the fairies from 
the scythe of Time. 

Designed in general for young people near enough to the 
college age to feel an interest in the personal and human as- 
pects of literature, but the last two could easily be handled by 
younger actors. They can successfully be given by groups or 
societies of young people without the aid of a professional coach. 

LITTLE PLAYS FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

FOR YOUNG FOLKS 

By Alice Johnstone Walker. #1.20 net. 

Hiding the Regicides, a number of brief and stirring episodes, 
concerning the pursuit of Colonels Whalley and GoflF by the 
officers of Charles II at New Haven in old colony days. 

Mrs. Murray's Dinner Party, in three acts, is a lively comedy 
about a Patriot hostess and British Officers in Revolutionary 
Days. 

Scenes from Lincoln's Time ; the martyred President does not 
himself appear. They cover Lincoln's helping a little girl with 
her trunk, women preparing lint for the wounded, a visit to the 
White House of an important delegation from New York, and 
of the mother of a soldier boy sentenced to death — and the com- 
ing of the army of liberation to the darkies. 

Tho big events are touched upon, the mounting of all these 
little plays is simplicity itself, and they have stood the test of 
frequent school performance. 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

Publishers New York 



BY CLAYTON HAMILTON 

Each book fully indexed. 12mo. $1.60 net. 

PROBLEMS OF THE PLAYWRIGHT 

Building a Play Backward; Surprise in the Drama; The 
Troublesome Last Act; High Comedy in America; The George 
M. Cohan School of Playrights; Middle Class Opinion; Criti- 
cism and Creation in the Drama; Dramatic Talent and Theat- 
rical Talent; The Plays of Lord Dunsany; Romance and 
Realism in the Drama; Scenic Settings in America; The New 
Stagecraft; The Non-Commercial Drama; A Democratic Insur- 
rection in the Theatre; A Scheme for a Stock Company; What's 
Wrong with the American Drama, etc., etc. 

Prof. Brander Matthews, in the Bookman: . . .Mr. Hamilton and 
Mr. Archer — like Lessing and like Sarcey — have a broad background of 
culture. . . . They never stray into the dusty paths of pedantry. . . . 
Consistently interesting because it has the support of knowledge and 
the savour of individuality." 

STUDIES IN STAGECRAFT 

The New Art of Making Plays, The Pictorial Stage, The 
Modern Art of Stage Direction, A Plea for a New Type of 
Play, The Undramatic Drama, The Supernatural Drama, The, 
Irish National Theatre, Where to Begin a Play, A New Defense 
of Melodrama, The Art of the Moving-Picture Play, The One- 
Act Play in America, Organizing an Audience, etc., etc. 

Nation: "Information, alertness, coolness, sanity and the command 
of a forceful and pointed English. ... A good book, in spite of 
all deductions." 

Prof. Archibald Henderson, in The Drama: "University excellent in 
quality. . . . Continually interesting in presentation . . . uniform for 
high excellence and elevated standards. ..." 

THE THEORY OF THE THEATRE 

What is a Play? — The Psychology of Theatre Audiences. — 
The Actor and the Dramatist. — Stage Conventions in Modern 
Times. — The Four Leading Types of Drama. — The Modern 
Social Drama, and Other Principles of Dramatic Criticism. — 
The Public and the Dramatist. — Dramatic Art and the Theatre 
Business. — Dramatic Literature and Theatric Journalism. — 
Pleasant and Unpleasant Plays. — Themes in the Theatre. — The 
Function of Imagination, etc., etc. 

Bookman: "Presents coherently a more substantial body of idea on 
the subject than perhaps elsewhere accessible. 

Boston Transcript: "At every moment of his discussion he has a 
firm grasp upon every phase of the subject." 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



BY BARRETT H. CLARK 

THE CONTINENTAL DRAMA OF TO-DAY 

Outlines for Its Study 

Suggestions, questions, biographies, and bibliographies 
with outlines, of half a dozen pages or less each, of the 
more important plays of twenty-four Continental dram- 
atists. While intended to be used in connection with a 
reading of the plays themselves, the book has an inde- 
pendent interest. 12mo. $1.75 net. 

Prof. William Lyon Phelps, of Yale: ". . . One of the most 
useful works on the contemporary drama. . . . Extremely prac- 
tical, full of valuable hints and suggestions. . . ." 

BRITISH fcr AMERICAN DRAMA OF TO-DAY 

Outlines for Its Study 
Suggestions, biographies and bibliographies, together 
with historical sketches, for use in connection with the 
important plays of Pinero, Jones, Wilde, Shaw, Barker, 
Hankin, Chambers, Davies, Galsworthy, Masefield, 
Houghton, Bennett, Phillips, Barrie, Yeats, Boyle, Baker, 
Sowerby, Francis, Lady Gregory, Synge, Murray, Ervine, 
Howard, Heme, Thomas, Gillette, Fitch, Moody, 
Mackaye, Sheldon, Kenyon, Walters, Cohan, etc. i2mo. 
$1.75 net. 

THREE MODERN PLAYS FROM THE FRENCH 

Lemaitre's The Pardon and Lavedan's Prince D'Aurec, 
translated by Barrett H. Clark, with Donnay's The 
Other Danger, translated by Charlotte Tenney David, 
with an Introduction to each author by Barrett H. Clark 
and a Preface by Clayton Hamilton. One volume. 
12 mo. $1.75 net. 

Springfield Republican: "'The Prince d'Aurec' is one of his 
best and most representative plays. It is a fine character crea- 
tion. . . . 'The Pardon' must draw admiration for its remark- 
able technical efficiency. . . . 'The Other Danger' is a work 
of remarkable craftsmanship." 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



PLAYS BY TH REE AMERICANS 

Beulah M. Dix's ACROSS THE BORDER 

A dream play suggested by the present war. $1.00 net. 

Clayton Hamilton: "The best of all recent plays inspired 
by the European War . . . highly imaginative, powerful and 
touching." 

Beulah M. Dix's ALLISON'S LAD and Other Martial 
Interludes 

These one-act episodes of olden wars include Allison's Lad, 
The Hundredth Trick, The Weakest Link, The Snare and the 
Fowler, The Captain of the Gate, The Dark of the Dawn. 
All the characters are men or boys. $1.35 net. 

Percival Wilde's DAWN and Other One-Act Plays 

Dawn, The Noble Lord, The Traitor, A House of Cards, 
Playing with Fire and The Finger of God. 2nd printing. 
$1.35 net. 

Percival Wilde's CONFESSIONAL and Other Short Plays 

Confessional, The Villain in the Piece, According to Darwin 
(2 acts), A Question of Morality and The Beautiful Story. 

$1-35 net. 

The Independent: "The subjects are those of most interest today, the 
treatment is fresh and sincere, and the author shows a keen sense of 
dramatic values." 

PLAYS BY GEORGE MIDDLETON 
EMBERS and Other One-Act Plays 

Including The Failures, The Gargoyle, In His House, The 
Man Masterful and Madonna. 3rd printing. $1.35 net. 
TRADITION and Other One- Act Plays 

Including On Bail, Mothers, Waiting, Their Wife and The 
Cheat of Pity. 3rd printing. $1.35 net 

POSSESSION and Other One-Act Plays 

Including The Groove, The Black Tie, A Good Woman, 
Circles and The Unborn. 2nd printing. $1.35 net. 

NOWADAYS 

A Comedy of American Life To-day. 4th printing. $1.20 net. 
THE ROAD TOGETHER 

A four-act play of married life. $1.20 net. 

New York Tribune: "He is America's only serious contribution to the 
international drama of the period . . . one constantly reflects how much 
better it acts than it reads, and it reads exceedingly well " 

KiTFor fuller information send for the publisher's Descrip- 
tive List of Drama Books to 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS IX '17 NEW YORK 



CALVIN THOMAS'S GOETHE 

A short biography and chapters on The Philosopher, The 
Evolutionist, The Believer, The Poet, The Dramatist, The 
Novelist, The Critic, Faust. 368 pp. 12mo. $2.00 net 

Boston Transcript: "An entertaining account of the family life . . . 
a rather fine and noble picture of Goethe himself — human and to the 
life. . . . He does not err on the side of over-adulation ... an 
admirable summary of Goethe's services as a scientist. . . . His account 
of 'Faust,' especially of the second part, is highly enlighting. . . . Just 
what any student of Goethe and of German literature would desire; 
clear, fair and entertaining." 

CALVIN THOMAS'S THE LIFE AND WORKS 

OF SCHILLER 

481 pp. 12mo. $1.75 net 
New York Evening Post: "An eminently sympathetic study, which 
will commend itself to the general reader for its avoidance of the minor 
pedantries into which writers on German subjects — not excluding 
Carlyle — are prone to fall." 

LESSING'S MINNA VON BARNHELM 

Translated with an introduction by Prof. Otto Heller of 
Washington University. $1.00 net. 
Reedy' s Mirror: "Dear Minna might have stepped out of a Bernard 
Shaw book — out of 'Man and Superman.' She is as modern as 
modernity — clever, frank, free, sweet and womanly. The Major is 
more real than Major Pendennis and as adorably stupid in his almost 
Roman virtue. ... A comedy from which the cult of the new and little 
theatres may still learn. . . . From the quality revealed in Professor 
Heller's translation, I can well believe that this is the most perfect 
comedy in the German language." 

LESSING'S NATHAN THE WISE 

Translated by Ellen Frothingham. Preceded by a brief 
account of the Poet and his Works and followed by Kuno 
Fischer's Essay on the Play. $1.50. 
North American Review: "We heartily commend the volume as an 

admirable version of a work which after lapse of a century, still 

remaHns the unsurpassed model of a didactic drama," 

THE GERMAN DRAMA OF THE 

NINETEENTH CENTURY 

By Georg Witkowski. Translated by Prof. L. E. Horning. 
12mo. $1.00 net. 
New York Times Review: "The translation of this brief, clear and 
logical account was an extremely happy idea. Nothing at the same time 
so comprehensive and terse has appeared on the subject." 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



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